Persimmon Gap Store -- Big Bend NP TX - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

From Texas: A Guide to the Lone Star State:

"PERSIMMON GAP, 41.5 m. (2,971 alt.), is a pass in the Santiago Range. The Sierra Del Caballo Muerto (5,647 alt.), (L), is locally called by its English translation, the Dead Horse Mountains. In this range are the real badlands of the Big Bend, where water is almost unobtainable except in tinajas (natural rock depressions which catch rain water).

Through this gap came the Comanche Trail, blazed by raiding Indians from the South Plains on their way to Mexico. It extended south from Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River, past Comanche Springs (Fort Stockton), to the Comanche Crossing of the Rio Grande. Pieces of petrified trees, said by geologists to be two hundred million years old, have been used in landscaping this spot. This area is a natural botanical garden, containing many plants of the Big Bend region: lecheguilla, sotol, creosote, cenizo, huisache, all-thorn, guayule, black-brush, cacti of many varieties, and wild persimmon.

From this vantage point is obtained the first good view of the distant Chisos Mountains (average alt. 7,000). High, many-colored, and hazy, they bulk in a serrated mass on the horizon to the southwest. Their misty appearance, due to an atmospheric haze, is given as one interpretation of their name that it is derived from an Apache word meaning ghostly. Another possible derivation is from the Comanche word for echo. The Chisos are part of the Rocky Mountain system; they cover approximately 40 square miles and are noted for their vivid coloring blue, red, purple, and yellow and for their ruggedness. In long-past geologic ages they were thrust up through sedimentary limestone beds, and today present a cluster of major and minor peaks which dominate the tip of the Big Bend. Erosion from this uplift has covered the adjacent desert with rubble; the limestone is not again exposed until it outcrops in the walls of three great canyons which the Rio Grande has carved for itself through intervening rock ranges.

Persimmon Gap is the northernmost entrance to the proposed Big Bend National Park of Texas, a triangular tract embracing approximately 736,000 acres enclosed by the big bend of the Rio Grande. This park was authorized by Congress in 1935, subject to the vesting of title to all lands in this park area on United States soil ; and until such title shall have passed and administration funds are made available, no definite development plans can be carried out. It is proposed to invite
the Mexican government to cooperate by establishing a park on the Mexican side, the two areas to form an international park.

COOPER'S STORE (R), 42.7 m., has gas, oil, water, cold drinks, and
lunch supplies."

In 2016 the National Park Service operates Cooper's former store as a Visitor Center. There are several posters inside the center preserving the history of Cooper's Store and the Cooper family, as follows:

"PERSIMMON GAP VISITOR CENTER - COOPER’S STORE

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

"THE COOPER FAMILY

Around 1929, William A. Cooper, his wife Erna and their five children arrived from the Del Rio area and established the Persimmon Gap Ranch. It didn’t take long for Mr. Cooper to see the need for a store at Persimmon Gap, which he built north of the present entrance station along with living quarters for his family and a separate building to house a one-room schoolhouse. Bill Cooper Jr was 10 years old when his family moved to Big Bend.

[photos]
These photos are from Bill Cooper Junior’s family life at Persimmon Gap from 1937 until 1945

[photo]
Wedding photo of Jimmie Hill Cooper. She married Bill Cooper Jr on April 17, 1937. Jimmie taught school at the San Vicente school on the Rio Grande from 1937-1940.

[photo]
Judy Cooper on her tricycle in front of “The Old Rock Store” located 8 miles from Persimmon Gap at the corner of the Harte Ranch Road.

[photo]
Charles and Judy Cooper with Bumblefoot” the chicken and kitten”Mary”

[photo of burro]
Judy writes, “This is where Dad (Bill Cooper Jr.) had his candelilla wax vats, where some of his hired hands gathered and melted the wax plants down and then Dad hauled it to San Angelo Texas and sold it to a company that made candles.” Notice Dog Canyon in the background.

[photo]
Judy Cooper, almost four years old, gazes up at the two deer that her father had killed for meat."

and

"THE PERSIMMON GAP STORES AND SCHOOLS

[photo]
This is the first Persimmon Gap School as viewed from the porch of the house.

Bill Cooper Sr. was operating the Persimmon Gap Ranch, and being a gregarious fellow who love to visit folks, he felt that if he opened the store, people would stop by to talk. Eventually his family built five different stores. The first Cooper store was built in 1929 and stood just a little north and west of the current entrance station.

His five children needed to go to school. At that time in Texas it took 8 children to establish a need for school, so Mr. Cooper hired a man who had four children and the first Persimmon Gap School opened.

A year or so later, the Coopers moved their enterprise into a substantial building they built of rock just south of the intersection of the Harte Ranch Road and the highway. Half of the building was devoted to the fourth Cooper store, and the other half was the family's living quarters. (See photo above) this building was demolished by NPS.

In the 1930s, the Coopers fell on hard times and Mr. Cooper was foreclosed on and lost this land. However, because “the bank didn’t own the buildings,” he moved them, including the school, about one mile south onto land that he had leased from the state. That became the third “Cooper’s Store” and the second school.

San Vicente School where Jimmie Hill Cooper taught school from 1937-1940. Here’s a photo of Ms. Cooper in her class (right).

San Vicente school has been in many locations in its history. The pictured building (above) was located at Dugout Wells, but for a few years San Vicente school was at Persimmon Gap.

Jimmie Hill Cooper taught at this (3rd) schoolhouse which was built by Bill Cooper Jr in 1940. It was located just south of Nine Points Draw in Brewster County, 5 miles south of Persimmon Gap."

Book: Texas Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 624 Year Originally Published: 1940

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