Who owns the night? Judge Henington says the Big Bend
Last week, Brewster County officials hosted a series of meetings to explore the possibility of officially branding the region for the purposes of tourism as the “Dark Sky Capital of Texas.” Representatives from Visit Big Bend convened in Terlingua on Monday, and on Tuesday evening, the Alpine City Council and the Brewster County Commissioners Court joined forces in Alpine for a rare combined meeting. “Tourism is the most important thing we do in this county,” Judge Greg Henington said. “Yes we mine, yes we ranch, but tourism has brought in millions.”
Henington said that officials were inspired to talk big-picture brand strategy after observing shifts in the region’s tourism industry, which last year generated $2.4 million in hotel occupancy taxes for Visit Big Bend. Visitation to the Big Bend parks exploded in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and has remained steady ever since.—but brisk business doesn’t seem to be encouraging folks to settle down permanently in the area. The population of Brewster County shrank by 5% between the last two census counts, taking a bite into the potential tax pool—and in the long term, the county’s budget. “It’s become glaringly obvious to me that without growth we’ll become stagnant,” Henington said.
One tourism trend that officials want to hop on is astrotourism. Advancements in technology over the past few years have made it possible for anyone to be an astronomer—and with a few pointers, pretty much anyone with a smartphone can take stunning shots of the Milky Way. Local businesswoman Kaci Kothmann said she’d anecdotally observed this trend among visitors to South Brewster County. “The number one thing [that brings people here] is always dark skies and stargazing,” she said. “They might have come out here to hike, to sightsee, to be romantic—but at the end of the day, they all want to look up at the stars.”
River guide Bryan Devonshire made the trek to Alpine for Tuesday’s meeting to offer his perspective. During the open comment portion of the meeting, he said that he got so many requests for astronomy tours that his informal “star parties” hosted on Saturday nights at Far Flung Outdoor Center had grown into a bona fide business—Astro Mucho, the region’s first private astronomy guide service. “I’m hearing from so many guests specifically to South County that they’re coming for the dark skies,” he said. “I think that within a decade, astrotourism is going to be a bigger draw than river tourism.”
Communities in Brewster County are also gearing up for July 2026, when a series of beefed-up dark sky ordinances go into effect. Advocates at the McDonald Observatory have been working since the 1970s to encourage local governments to adopt lighting standards that reduce light pollution, preserving the quality of the night sky to aid the institution’s research. Efforts to get everyone on board intensified in 2022, when the greater Big Bend region earned the honor of becoming the world’s largest international Dark Sky Reserve, certified by Dark Sky International.
Judge Henington proposed that the county pursue the possibility of copyrighting the “Dark Sky Capital of Texas” and using it in promotional materials for Brewster County. That branding could be shared with Presidio and Jeff Davis counties—a proposition that sounded promising to Jeff Davis County Judge Curtis Evans, who attended Tuesday’s joint meeting for moral support. “We’re here as neighbors to help,” he said.
No action was taken by commissioners or by council members, but Judge Henington floated the idea of undertaking a study on tourism trends in the area and proposed starting a working group to keep forward momentum. Visit Big Bend will meet again in Alpine at the end of October to continue the discussion.