I moved my motorcycle repair, welding and machine shop business from Del Rio to Alpine in 1989. Gator and Roberta, old biker friends of mine, were operating the RV park in Shafter and invited me to a Fourth of July campout that year. That was the first time I’d more than passed through Shafter on the highway. Cibolo Creek flows through the canyon, rising to the surface on the north end of town in springs, and flowing on the surface for several miles before sinking once again below the sand and gravel as the creek makes its way south to the Rio Grande. There is a narrow riverine forest of cottonwoods, willows and elms along the creek, and Cibolo Creek in Shafter is one of the few reliable open water sources in the Chinati Mountains. The Big Bend had enjoyed a string of wet years, and the creek was running like a Rocky Mountain trout stream.
There are a series of water-polished limestone ledges at a bend in the creek just below the former RV park, perfect for lounging in the sunlight as we watched the changing colors of the light on the rock faces of las Tres Hermanas, the mountains just east of Shafter. Ruins of rock and adobe miner’s cabins dotted the mountainsides, peeking through brush and cactus. The hill above town hosted a sprawling cemetery of rock-piled graves with weathered wooden crosses. Old mining equipment and ruined structures dotted the area. I thought, “Man, what a great place, but what would you do here?”
Five years later in 1994, after I’d sold the bike shop and earned a degree in industrial technology from Sul Ross, I was offered a job teaching metal trades at Presidio High School, just 19 miles from Shafter. I called up a customer of mine from the bike shop who I knew owned an adobe house in Shafter and made arrangements to rent the place from him. Three years later I was offered the chance to buy an 1890s adobe house on the north end of town behind the church. I’ve now lived in that house longer than anywhere else I’ve ever lived.
I loved the peace and quiet of the ghost town. We were right on a major highway, but hardly anyone ever stopped. An old biker buddy of mine, Manny Avila, spent a week in Shafter helping me move in. When asked how he liked Shafter, he said, “Shafter’s very nice. Every day is like Sunday, everything’s closed.” Many times my friends and I would be floating in one of the many swimming holes we had along the creek, look at each other, and marvel over our good fortune. Here we were in one of the most beautiful places in the Big Bend, not 300 yards off a good highway, and we had it all to ourselves. We knew it was too good to last.
And now, 30 years on, it appears that it’s over. I always knew it could end. The mine might resume production and bring a bunch of people in. Or, looking at what’s happened over the past few years in Marfa and Terlingua, tourist development might, as it appears to be doing, arrive in Shafter.
John Poindexter owns Cibolo Creek Ranch, just north of Shafter. He has been purchasing property in Shafter for several years, though the pace of his acquisitions has picked up of late. Cibolo Creek Ranch is a beautiful and historic property, and the several haciendas on it have been beautifully restored and renovated, such that famous people pay hundreds of dollars a night to stay there. I suppose he has something similar in mind for his Shafter properties. I expect we’ll be having a lot more traffic and people in the ghost town. In fact, I don’t suppose it will be a ghost town any longer, anymore than Terlingua now is.
So far, the first thing his crews do is scrape every property down to bare dirt, removing virtually all of the native plants. There was a nice stand of bird-of-paradise bushes in front of the old store on the highway, behind the mail boxes. They were covered with beautiful yellow and orange blossoms all summer long. Like many native plants they are difficult to propagate; they’re all gone now. The beautiful ocotillo fence around the house next door –– uprooted and into the dumpster. The vacant lot behind the church, once covered in native plants and cacti, now bare, plowed dirt. I asked Mr. Poindexter what he planned to build there. He said he had nothing planned, he was just cleaning up and asked if I didn’t think it an improvement. I mentioned that I’d miss all the birds that had nested there, and the family of desert foxes who had lived there and the javelinas. I also get a lot more noise from the highway, formerly blocked by the brush. He said we’d just have to differ in our opinions, to which I replied that it was his land and he could do what he wanted with it.
I’ve been retired from school for almost 10 years now. I’m getting old, struggling with mobility issues, and there’s talk about moving closer to family, though I’d rather stay here. Change is inevitable. I’ll miss the ghost town, but I had it for 30 years, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.