Van Horn, Texas, Crossroads at the Edge of the Basin

Van Horn is the only incorporated town in Culberson County and one of the few service stops on the long, desolate run of Interstate Ten between El Paso and Midland, a stretch of about two hundred eighty miles. The town grew up around a water source and an army garrison established in eighteen fifty-nine, named for Lieutenant James Judson Van Horn, who commanded it. When the Texas and Pacific Railway came through in eighteen eighty-one the town found its footing as a supply point for ranches spread across millions of acres of high Chihuahuan Desert. In recent years Van Horn has attracted an unlikely form of attention: it is the nearest town to Blue Origin's Launch Site One, where Jeff Bezos's rocket company conducts suborbital test flights, and in twenty twenty-one Van Horn became the landing point for the first crewed New Shepard flight.