County Past
Home › Texas › Brewster County

Brewster County, Texas

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
17historic places
—earliest paper
1887formed
9,546pop. 2020
15cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 17 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1974. Most listings are in or near Alpine, Big Bend National Park, Panther Junction.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Texas is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Brewster titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

6 of 17 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

17 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Alpine Downtown Historic DistrictAlpineDistrict2026
Brewster County Courthouse and JailAlpineBuilding1978
Burro Mesa Archeological DistrictPanther JunctionDistrict1985
Castolon Historic DistrictBig Bend National ParkDistrict1974
Daniels Farm HouseRio Grande VillageBuilding1989
Gage HotelMarathonBuilding2020
Grandview Courts-Siesta MotelAlpineDistrict2025
Holland HotelAlpineBuilding2025
Hot SpringsBig Bend National ParkSite1974
Kokernot FieldAlpineDistrict2026
Luna JacalBig Bend National ParkBuilding1974
Mariscal MineBig Bend National ParkDistrict1974
Nolte-Rooney HouseAlpineBuilding1997
Panther Junction Mission 66 Historic DistrictBig Bend National ParkDistrict2014
Rancho EstelleBig Bend National ParkDistrict1974
Terlingua Historic DistrictTerlinguaDistrict1996
Wilson, Homer, RanchSanta Elena JunctionDistrict1975

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Brewster was formed in 1887 (1887-02-02) from Presidio.

BREWSTER created from PRESIDIO.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Brewster County population from 1890 to 2020 (Census historical series).

9,5465,12871018901920196020002020
189019001920194019501960198020002020
7102,3564,8226,4787,3096,4347,5738,8669,546

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

15 cemeteries and 5 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 15 of 15 listed
NameLatLon
Castolon Cemetery29.13438-103.51028
Coyote Cemetery29.14956-103.54309
Elm Grove Cemetery30.35839-103.63716
Fort Pena Colorado Cemetery30.18373-103.26061
Glenn Springs Cemetery29.17309-103.15863
Holy Angels Cemetery30.35911-103.63466
Lajitas Cemetery29.2623-103.77477
Marathon Cemetery30.19708-103.24211
Nina Marie Seawell Hannold Gravesite29.36938-103.16744
Post Oak Cemetery30.30242-98.54697
Rice Cemetery29.24598-103.13254
San Vicente Crossing Cemetery29.13255-103.02243
Study Butte Cemetery29.3133-103.52493
Terlingua Cemetery29.31931-103.61235
Terlingua de Abajo Cemetery29.21694-103.59914
Historical populated places — 5 of 5
NameLatLon
Bennett Place30.07518-103.03433
Bennett Place30.12129-103.00905
Bennett Place30.22434-103.06905
Glenn Springs29.16104-103.14739
Tinaja29.7388-102.88099

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Brewster County, Texas

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.