Related Topics:  History, Nature, West Texas

How Come It's Called That? by Virginia Madison and Hallie Stillwell

Road Maps and guidebooks a-plenty have been worked out by experts at watching signposts and mile-markers to lead you through the trails and canyons and up the mountains of the Big Bend country, so we have in no way attempted to chart your course.  However if any of your explorations in the region cause you to wonder at the peculiar-sounding name attached to some remote place, or if there seems to be no logic whatsoever in the name of a spring, mountain or canyon, drag out this little volume and find out how come it's called that.

If there are several versions to the story of how a place was named we have given all the versions, but if you find something you don't believe, remember that this is how we heard it, for all the stories came from the people.  And you will miss the most important commodity the Big Bend has to offer if you don't get to know the people.

In a region where the people are individualists, it is impossible to get all the good stories between the covers of one book, for there are just as many good yarns as there are individuals.  If you hear a story about the naming of some landmark which we did not include, jot it down, for it will give you a bright peg upon which to hand your memory of that place.

~ Excerpt from the "What's in a Name? - History and Happenings" chapter...
Once a Brewster County resident, who had been in the region some forty-odd years, inquired of an old cowmand who had spent seventy years in the Big Bend, "Roy, can you tell me why in tarnation they call that break between the Santiago Mountains and the Dead Horse 'Dog Canyon?'"

"Sure, I can tell you how come it's called that." And out came the tale in a very few words.  "Years ago when one of the early settlers was going through that particular canyon, he found a wagon and ox-team with a dog guarding them.  There was no trace of the owner.  From then on it was called 'Dog Canyon.'"

~ Excerpt from the "Place Names West of the Park and Along Highway 118" chapter...
A few miles from Study Butte on Highway 118 going toward Alpine, one of the formations which attracts tourists is the honeycombed surface of Bee Mountain named for the hives of bees which live in the crevices.  So numerous are these bee caves that the whole mountain resembles an enormous beehive.

~ Excerpt from the "Southwest Big Bend and Down the Rio Grande" chapter...
Pinto Canyon runs from Ruidosa into the Chinati Mountains.  Pinto Canyon means painted canyon and gets its name from the brilliant colors of its walls.

Virginia Duncan Madison, author, historian, educator and lecturer, was born and reared in West Texas.  After her parents died she and her sister operated the family ranch near San Angelo, Texas for eight years.  Here Virginia was a sheepherder, cowhand and horse wrangler.  Later she attended Sul Ross State College where she received her B.S. and M.A. degrees.  She went on to public opinion research work and to study at Columbia University.  Virginia knew and loved the Big Bend, and early became a collector of its tales and legends  In New York City, she met and married Elihue Madison, also a Texas native.  For twenty years they made their home in New York, where their daughter, Dolly (Mrs. John McKenna), was born.  In 1955 Virginia wrote The Big Bend Country of Texas (University of New Mexico Press), the first major history of the area.  Upon Elihue Madison's retirement, the couple moved back to their beloved Texas, settling in Austin.  Virginia Duncan Madison died August 9, 1984, and is buried in Austin.

Hallie Crawford Stillwell, pioneer ranchwoman, was born in Waco, Texas, and came to the Big Bend country at the age of twelve with her parents in a covered wagon.  At the tender age of sixteen Hallie Crawford - armed with a high school diploma, a teacher's certificate, and a six-shooter - moved to Presidio, Texas to teach school, just across the Rio Grande from Ojinaga, Mexico, where Pancho Villa and his raiders were on the rampage.  In 1918 she married Roy Stillwell, a cattle rancher from Marathon, Texas, and moved with him to his ranch, located just north of the Mexican border in a region plagued by Villa and bandits.  Hallie rode horseback, by her husband's side, for thirty years.  She learned the cattle business and the country and its people, an education that served her well after Roy's death in 1948.  Her recollections of these years are recorded in her book I'll Gather My Geese (Texas A&M University Press, 1991).

After Roy Stillwell's death, she and her two sons took the family ranch into their own hands.  During the drought of the 1950s, Hallie turned to outside employment to keep the ranch in operation.  She began writing, reporting for Texas newspapers, and lecturing.  Her "Ranch News" column appeared in the Alpine Avalanche for more than thirty years, and she served as Justice of the Peace in Alpine, Texas for twenty years.  Hallie Stillwell has been inducted into both the Texas Women's Hall of Fame and the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.  She and sons and a daughter operated the family ranch, an R.V. park and store, and Hallie's Hall of Fame Museum near Big Bend National Park.  Hallie Crawford Stillwell passed away in 1997.

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