The Terlingua Cemetery: A Mining Town's Enduring Memory

On a hillside above the ruins of the old Chisos Mining Company store, the Terlingua Cemetery has been receiving the dead since the mining era began. It is one of the oldest continuously used cemeteries in this part of west Texas, a quiet ground of wooden crosses, iron markers, stone cairns, and a few commercial headstones that together hold the remains of miners from Mexico, workers from the surrounding desert communities, and company officials from the early quicksilver operation. The cemetery reflects the working population of the mine: most of the markers are modest, and many names have been worn away by decades of desert wind.

The community of the region still buries its dead here, connecting the present to the mining past in the most direct way possible. Each year in early November, on the Day of the Dead, the Terlingua community gathers at the cemetery for a ritual that blends the Mexican Catholic tradition of Dia de los Muertos with the particular character of this isolated desert town. Candles are lit, food is brought to the graves, music is played, and the old mining town's past is briefly and communally remembered.

On the first weekend of November, the chili cookoffs draw thousands of visitors from across the country to Terlingua. The cemetery holds the mining era, the cookoffs celebrate the revival era, and the desert holds both.