Castolon Store -- Castolon Visitor Center, Big Bend NP TX
N 29° 08.014 W 103° 30.851
13R E 644540 N 3223696
Castolon Store, still being operated by Wayne Cartledge when the Texas WPA Guidebook was published in 1940
Waymark Code: WMV0PR
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 02/03/2017
Views: 1
From Texas: A guide to the Lone Star State:
"State 227 proceeds almost directly south, then turns sharply west to the junction with a dirt road at 96.2 m.
Left on this road to CASTOLON, 7.3 m. (2,124 alt., 50 pop.). This small settlement is occupied chiefly by the trading post of W. R. Cartledge. Its name was taken from the Spanish word castellan, which means warden of a castle. The little community sprawls in the shadow of strangely colored CERRO CASTELLAN (Warden Peak), the sheer salmon-pink bluffs of which rise to an elevation of 3,283 feet.
Castolon was a subpost of Camp Marfa during the Mexican border troubles in 1910. A post office was established in 1922. Across the river is the old Mexican town of Santa Helena, at which are stationed mounted Mexican river guards. On application at the customhouse a trip can be made into Mexico."
In 2016, Cartledge's Store is part of the Castolon Historic District, ans is operated by the National Park Service as a bookstore and Visitor Center.
This area of Big Bend National Park has served as an Army Cavalry Post, a trading post, a farming hub, and since 1961, as a visitor Center for Big Bend National park.
The interpretive sign nearby reads as follows:
"CASTOLON
The U.S. Army built many of the structures in 1919 in 1920 for use as a border outpost during the Mexican Revolution. This outpost, Camp Santa Elena, was never fully occupied; in 1920 the Army was withdrawn as political stability returned to Mexico.
From 1919 to 1961 the Cartledge family use the old Army buildings as a store and trading post, and farmed and ranched here along the Rio Grande. The structures and grounds look much as they did during the last years of the Cartledge period.
As you drive from here to Santa Elena Canyon, you will encounter other examples of early 1900s border architecture: adobe walls, cane and viga ceilings, and stone fireplaces. The adobes are now empty, but the Castolon area has changed little since the frontier days of Indians, outlaws, and pioneer farmers."
Book: Texas
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 629
Year Originally Published: 1940
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