Balmorhea: Springs in the Desert

San Solomon Springs has been drawing people to this corner of the Chihuahuan Desert for centuries. Spanish explorer Antonio de Espejo stopped here in fifteen eighty-three, guided by Jumano people who knew where the water flowed. The town of Balmorhea itself came much later, laid out in nineteen oh-six on a fourteen-thousand-acre irrigated tract and named by stitching together the last names of four land developers: Balcom, Morrow, and the Rhea brothers, who organized the Toyah Valley Irrigation Company.

The real gift to posterity, though, was the state park the Civilian Conservation Corps built here during the nineteen thirties: a massive rock-walled swimming pool fed directly by the springs, holding millions of gallons, staying between seventy-two and seventy-six degrees year round. It remains one of the most unusual swimming holes in America.