Marathon is the northern gateway to Big Bend National Park. For years a ranching hub in Far West Texas, Marathon today retains much of its ranching flavor while becoming a popular getaway for artists, writers, and retirees.
Marathon makes an excellent hub for a Big Bend vacation.
Most of the attractions of the region are within an hour’s drive of Marathon.
The principal attraction of the area, Big Bend National Park is the largest and most remote of the national parks. It offers vast expanses of forbidding desert, jagged mountain peaks, and wild river canyons. The entrance to the park is a 45-minute drive south of Marathon.
Home to Sul Ross State University, Alpine is the most populous town in the vicinity of Big Bend. It boasts shops, restaurants, galleries, and other amenities, such as Big Bend Regional Medical Center.
Site of the historic cavalry post (Fort Davis National Historic Site) for which it is named, the town of Fort Davis is a growing community of retirees and other refugees from big-city life.
Fort Davis is also home to the University of Texas’ McDonald Observatory.
Marfa is the art capital of West Texas, with numerous galleries and artists in residence. The focal point of the Marfa art scene is the Chinati Foundation, founded in 1986 by sculptor Donald Judd.
Terlingua, near the western boundary of Big Bend National Park, is primarily known as the site of the annual national chili cook-off. Established as a cinnabar (mercury ore) mining town in the late 1800s, it became a ghost town in the 1940s. In the 1970s the chili cook-offs established by Frank X. Tolbert, Wick Fowler, and Carroll Shelby brought the ghost town to national prominence, and it now has a permanent population of several hundred.