Cooper's Store -- Persimmon Gap Visitor Center, Big Bend NP TX - Signs of History on Waymarking.com

An exhibit inside the Persimmon Gap Visitor Center shows how folks lived in this remote area from the 1900s-1940s. Part of this exhibit is this sign, which preserves the history of Cooper's Store as follows:

"PERSIMMON GAP VISITOR CENTER - COOPER’S STORE

Is this building new? No, in fact is a historic store originally built in 1940s.

In the book 'How Come It’s Called That' written by Hallie Stillwell, a neighbor and co-author Virginia Madison recalled, “For many years Cooper’s Store at this (Persimmon) Gap was the clearinghouse for information from the railroad to the river, and travelers going in either direction always stopped in to find out what had happened ahead of them.”

Cooper’s Store was a welcomed stopping place for park personnel and visitors when Big Bend National Park opened in 1944. The store sold ice, cold cuts, soft drinks, beer, gasoline, and a café served meals. This store was a gathering place for all the local ranchers and their families. It was operated as a park concession until the mid-1940s by Bill Cooper Jr, who lived with his wife Jimmie and their three children in part of the building.

[photo]
Judy Cooper checking out a visitor’s motorcycle around 1945.

The William A Cooper Sr family owned Persimmon Gap Ranch and built a succession of five stores in the immediate area beginning in 1929. This was the last one, built in the early 1940s by their son Bill Cooper Junior and his wife Jimmie. It was built of 10,000 adobe blocks manufactured on the site by four men from Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico.

So that the northern park boundary could be extended where it is today, the National Park Service purchased several sections of land, including Bill Cooper’s land, and the Cooper store building. It was then that the store became a Ranger contact station."

Group that erected the marker: National Park Service URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link] Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary: Persimmon Gap Visitor Center Big Bend National ParkTexas United States

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Date Logged Log   12/26/2016 Benchmark Blasterz visited it