Lajitas is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Brewster County, Texas Brewster County is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in West Texas and its county seat (and only city) is Alpine, Texas, Alpine. It is one of the nine counties that comprise the Trans-Pecos region, and b ...

, United States, near the

Big Bend National Park Big Bend National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in West Texas, bordering Mexico. The park has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topograph ...

. According to the ''

Handbook of Texas The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...

'', the community had a population of 75 in 2010.

History

The settlement is named after the Boquillas flagstone found in the area. ''Lajitas'' translates to "little flat rocks" in Spanish. Starting in the 1980s as a joke, for many years the purported mayor of Lajitas was Clay Henry III, a "beer-drinking" goat. After two replacements of the original Clay Henry, the trading post and stable where the actual mayor lived is now closed and the goat no longer resides there. The election included incumbent human mayor Tommy Steele, as well as a trading post wooden Indian, and a dog named Buster. Since Clay Henry, goats have been mayors of the community ever since.

Geography

Lajitas is located on the eastern end of the Big Bend Ranch State Park. It is located on a bluff overlooking the Rio Grande at San Carlos ford of the old Comanche Trail, in the northern part of the Chihuahuan Desert in southwestern Brewster County. It is also located south of Alpine and east of

Presidio A presidio (''jail, fortification'') was a fortified base established by the Spanish Empire mainly between the 16th and 18th centuries in areas under their control or influence. The term is derived from the Latin word ''praesidium'' meaning ''pr ...

Columnar basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90% of a ...

that is similar to that of the

Devils Postpile National Monument A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in many and various cultures and religious traditions. Devil or Devils may also refer to: * Satan * Devil in Christianity * Demon * Folk devil Art, entertainment, and media Film and ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

can be found in a high desert dry river falls area just north of Lajitas.

Climate

Lajitas has a hot

arid climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk'') is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

with very hot summers and mild winters.

Economy

The Lajitas Golf Resort and Spa is a 20,000-acre golf resort business in Lajitas owned by Texas businessman Kelcy Warren, who bought the resort from previous owner Steve Smith while the business was going through

financial distress Financial distress is a term in corporate finance used to indicate a condition when promises to creditors of a company are broken or honored with difficulty. If financial distress cannot be relieved, it can lead to bankruptcy. Financial dist ...

. It is located on the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

, bordering

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

,Black Jack's Crossing Golf Club
Bradley S. Klein, Business Jet Traveler, August 2012. between

and Big Bend Ranch State Park. The '' Robert E. Lee on Traveller'' statue is on display at the resort.

Education

Lajitas is zoned to schools in the Terlingua Common School District.
Clipping
from

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. It is owned by The ...

. It states the students attend Terlingua Common School. In 1912, Lajitas had a school with 50 students.

Media

In the 1970s, the community had one telephone, and newspapers were delivered one day later than their normal dates. Additionally, televisions were a rarity among communities in the decade. Frank Q. Dobbs directed his first film, ''Enter the Devil'', in Lajitas in 1972.

Infrastructure

350px, Lajitas Cemetery

Airport

Due to the remoteness of the resort, Lajitas is served by the Lajitas International Airport, a private

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

with a concrete runway. Regularly scheduled service between Lajitas and

Dallas Love Field Dallas Love Field is a city-owned public airport in the neighborhood of Love Field, Dallas, Love Field, northwest of downtown Dallas, Texas., effective April 17, 2025. It was Dallas' main airport until 1974 when Dallas Fort Worth Internation ...

is available on JSX.

Military bases

The 90th Fighter Squadron of the United States Army Border Air Patrol had a sector that traveled to Lajitas from Eagle Pass. The 11th Bomb Squadron operated from Marfa Field along the Rio Grande to

El Paso El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

References

External links

Lajitas Golf Resort
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Brewster County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas