This story is the second in a series on the early days of the Border Patrol in the Big Bend, published in honor of the agency’s 100-year anniversary.
LAJITAS — In July 1930, four early members of the Marfa Sector Border Patrol pulled off a death-defying stunt: swimming the length of Santa Elena Canyon, whose 1500-foot limestone walls are perhaps the most iconic symbol of what is now Big Bend National Park.
Their mission was scouting the mysterious “Grand Canyon of the Rio Grande” for potential smuggling trails. Santa Elena was not yet protected by the National Park Service in the early 1930s and was still shrouded in fear and mystery. Before departing on their trip, two unnamed Mexican guides allegedly told the party that the water was muy mala and the canyon was un diablo.
Few had attempted to run the canyon before. In 1852 — just a few years after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which set the Texas-Mexico border at the Rio Grande — surveyor M.T. Chandler set out on an expedition to map the river below Presidio. His goal was to help the government get a better sense of the enormous territory they’d just acquired through the Mexican-American War.
Chandler reported to survey director William H. Emory, namesake of the future park’s highest peak. Emory did little to reassure the survey party. He wrote that the canyon country along the river between Presidio and the Pecos River had never before been explored by “civilized man” because of “the impassible character of the river; walled in at places by stupendous rocky barriers, and escaping through chasms blocked up by huge rocks that have fallen from impending heights.”
Should his men misjudge these obstacles, “inevitable destruction would be the consequence.”
Surveying the rapids near the canyon’s entrance, Chandler’s party was understandably spooked. They had already destroyed multiple boats between Presidio and Lajitas and ultimately moved to walk around the canyon. They didn’t have sufficient horsepower to tow their last bulky wooden boat and gambled on letting it float down the river unattended.
This series of decisions may have been for the best — for the rest of their trip below the canyon they found pieces of the smashed wooden boat floating ominously in the water.
In 1899, Robert T. Hill of the U.S. Geological Survey attempted to pick up where the Chandler party had left off. The Hill expedition successfully navigated the canyon by boat, apart from the infamous Rock Slide — technically more maze than rapid, whose whirling eddies earn it an intimidating Class IV rating at certain flows.
The Hill party also decided the rapid was too beastly to run. It took them three days to portage their 300-pound boats along a quarter-mile beach on the Mexican side of the river, following a path through the miserably sharp vegetation cut with an ax by a man referred to only as “our faithful Mexican.” The men named the spot — the same one modern-day river runners typically pull over to scout their path through the boulders — Camp Misery.
Thirty years later, Chief Patrol Inspector C.C. Courtney of the Marfa Border Patrol reviewed these accounts and decided that a few of his fellow inspectors should run the river through the “Grand Canyon” — but ditch the boats, opting instead to go for a swim.
The Chandler and Hill expeditions contributed a lot to the understanding of the geography, flora and fauna of the Big Bend country, but had little to say on the people who lived there. Tasked with enforcing new laws around smuggling and migration, the Border Patrol needed to conduct its own survey — this time on its people and their movements across an obscure wilderness.
Courtney and his fellow inspectors were interested to see whether or not there were feasible smuggling routes through the canyon, which at that time was ringed by numerous farms and settlements, any of which might harbor bootleggers and common criminals.
The Border Patrol expedition was made up of nine men: Nick Collaer, assistant superintendent of the USBP in El Paso; C.C. Courtney, chief inspector of the Marfa Sector; Inspectors Edward C. Dennis and George H. Peters; Lieutenant John Minnice of the First Cavalry, Fort D.A. Russell; Jimmy Terrel, a student at Sul Ross; Charles Bishop of Marfa; Charles Bishop Jr., age 14; and A.F. Robinson of the Marfa Chamber of Commerce.
The men and a few supportive wives and relatives gathered in Lajitas on the night of July 23, 1930. Mrs. Courtney had prepared a stew for dinner and put music on a portable Victrola to furnish the mood. The table was set with the finest china. “The Border Patrol furnished Haviland [dishware] and sterling, so a meal fit for the gods was enjoyed by a hungry crew,” wrote O.L. Shipman in her writeup for The Sentinel. “Those who cared to, danced.”
That night, the Rio Grande appeared calm and clear, and the men were looking forward to their trip. They visited the house of a man named Don Muñoz the next morning, who furnished them with horses and mules and two guides. The support team then broke off and set off toward Terlingua and the mouth of the canyon beyond.
The swimmers and their guides made a trip of about 10 miles up and over the Mesa de Anguila to the entrance of the canyon, following a route encouragingly referred to as the “Smugglers Trail.” The Border Patrol inspectors saw no smugglers but did see that conditions had changed. “During that weird time of the night, between 12 o’clock and daybreak, flood waters came rushing down,” Shipman wrote. “The Rio Grande that appeared so peaceful the evening before was now a treacherous maddened thing rushing over the rapids.”
None of the swimmers wore life jackets, and instead were outfitted with flimsy rubber inner tubes. One man carried a camera in a waterproof box. Just beyond their launch, they could see a curving rocky rapid and a little beach just beyond, where they intended to get out of the water and reconvene.
From the start, they knew they were literally in over their heads. The force of the water made it difficult for the swimmers to choose their channel, and only a few of them made it to the beach unaided by ropes. “Here a short rest was taken, and while none of the members of the party mentioned it at the time, in discussing their thoughts subsequently all seem to be agreed that it would not have taken much encouragement for each to have agreed to turn back if such a thing had been possible,” said Shipman.
They did not know that just a mile later they would face the infamous Rock Slide, and were not able to pull off into the Hill expedition’s “Camp Misery” to scout it ahead of time. Half the party ended up perched on a boulder in the middle of the rapid and once again had to be rescued with ropes.
Now cold and exhausted from the struggle to keep their heads above water, they decided to take a break on a beach a few miles later. Halfway through the canyon, they were struck by how few signs of life they’d seen — but they found raccoon and beaver tracks and “thousands of little martins” flitting between the Mexican and American walls.
While resting, Collaer made an important discovery: he still had a few cigarettes and matches in a glass jar that were somehow still dry. The men happily lit up and posed for commemorative photos.
The nicotine rush perked them up for the last mile, as well as the knowledge that hot coffee and lunch were waiting for them at the canyon mouth. When they reunited with their support team, they checked the time and realized that they had completed the seven-mile route in just over five hours — still considered an impressively short period of time.
Collaer’s expedition discovered no smuggling trails and determined that it was humanly impossible to cross the river within the canyon. The Alpine Avalanche reported that they had only one piece of advice for future river runners: “The nine foolish ones agreed one and all to advise the world never to undertake such a trip on tubes but to use life preservers, for if you should have a blow-out or puncture there is no time or place to put on a cold patch.”
The USBP would float the canyon again in 1937 — this time in a boat. Inspector James W. Metcalfe played a bit part in helping the park become a reality by taking part in a highly publicized trip designed to sway lawmakers to rubber-stamp the park’s designation.
A short seven years later, Santa Elena became part of the country’s newest national park, and the relationship between the Border Patrol and the Department of the Interior was forced to evolve. Installing surveillance infrastructure was difficult now that the land was protected — the Border Patrol put up a radio transmitter and receiver, but Marfa Sector Chief Earl Fallis reported that the two entities got off to a rocky start.
Ross Maxwell, the first superintendent of the park, wanted visitors’ and researchers’ focus to be on the Big Bend’s geologic and biological wonders, and worked to minimize visible traces of the ranchers and lawmen who had roamed that country just a decade before. The political reality of life on the border was no exception.
Fallis said that he had “quite a bit of trouble” with Maxwell in the early days, but once retired, the two were able to diffuse old sour feelings. “Old Ross and I got to be pretty good friends, and even would take a drink out of the same bottle once in a while,” he recalled.
Today, the Border Patrol and the National Park Service (NPS) enjoy a much warmer relationship, said Chief of Interpretation Tom VandenBerg. The USBP established a permanent substation in 1987, and currently five agents and their families live within park boundaries.
Beyond their typical duties, USBP agents help NPS rangers in emergencies, including medical and search and rescue assistance. “Since they are in the field a lot, Border Patrol agents are also valuable eyes and ears on the ground and provide excellent updates on roads, visitor patterns, trespass livestock, and other activities going on,” VandenBerg said.
Special thanks to Victoria Contreras at the Archives of the Big Bend, Sul Ross State University.