So when I arrived at the water in Pinto Canyon, it was still too early for odes or butterflies to fly. On to the next destination. (I won't voluntarily drive that awful dirt road again.)
I never saw a single vehicle driving from Marfa to Candelaria. Going through Ruidosa, I stopped to photograph the church.
In the 1800s the town of Ruidosa was pretty much all owned and operated by the Nunez family consisting of four brothers, Tierso, Rejino, Santiago, and Inez, and their descendants. The story has it that Rejino was the one most instrumental in the construction of the Catholic church around 1914. At that time there were some 1700 residents living in the cotton farming community, but when the Rio Grande was dammed upstream, the town dwindled to the handful of residents there today. The Nunez family seemed to be very committed to their church and celebrated many wedding and baptisms there. I'm sure many funerals as well.
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| Lupe Nunez |
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| 1963 |
In 2006, through grants from the Texas Historical Commission and others, the church was stabilized and part of the left front tower was rebuilt. However, due to funding shortages, the project was abandoned and the church was, once again, left to the forces of nature.
And here's my photograph from today.
A few miles before Candelaria the land on the south side of the road was flooded for miles, creating a seasonal wetlands.
Candelaria is a quaint little Mexican village, seemingly suspended in time and space...a mosaic of trailers and adobes, with no stores or businesses, unless you count the tiny church there. As the Texas Monthly author, Joe Patoski, wrote in 1997, "Mexico is just across the river, but notions like borders and sovereignty have little meaning here. This is as remote as a town on a highway can get." Nothing has changed in the nearly 20 years since then. Here's the historical "oxbow" just outside town.
No lifers, but fun (and tiring) anyway.
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