La Coyota

La Coyota is the remnant of a small community beside Ross Maxwell Road near Alamo Creek. The road passes through its ruins, where only a few crumbling foundations remain. This is a stop for the story more than the scale of the ruins: it was the oldest documented community in Big Bend, home to nearly a dozen Mexican and Mexican-American families.

The site lies near Alamo Creek between mile markers 1 and 2, with auto parking. Look for the stone foundations among the desert scrub; a wide view that includes the mesa behind them shows the setting better than a close crop.

Don Severiano Chavarria moved to the area in 1884 with two sons and two daughters. His daughter Petra was born there the next year, and the family eventually grew to eleven sons and five daughters. The Garcia family also lived here, raising two boys and two girls in an adobe home. Their children helped with farm and cattle work, while Mr. Garcia worked ranch jobs and spent winters in Terlingua's mercury mines.

A former resident recalled growing corn, wheat and vegetables with surface water, and keeping hogs and chickens. Families sold surplus produce and tamales to miners in Terlingua. Runoff in the dry washes could sometimes cut residents off from home after storms.

One former resident thought La Coyota was named for a coyote shot while it tried to get into a henhouse. It is a remembered explanation for the name, not a settled etymology.