Marfa, TX

The Bright Lights of Marfa: From Movie Stars to Artists, Many Wander Into Marfa

Marfa, Texas, sits on a high plateau at the edge of the Big Bend country, midway between a lonely stretch of Interstate 10 and the Mexican border crossing at Presidio. With mountains rising in three directions, the city of 2,700 is a half-day’s drive from El Paso and hundreds of miles from the state’s biggest cities.

Still, the famous and not-so-famous seem to find their way to this desert town for jobs—or to see the Marfa lights that have mystified for more than a century. Cowboys, railroad workers, soldiers, actors, artists, and others have all left their mark on Marfa.

“I think we’re right in the center of the world,” says Lee Bennett, who has lived in Marfa most of her life. “You’d be surprised how many (residents) have two degrees, have traveled all over the world, and this is where they want to be.”

The town began in 1883 as a freight headquarters and water stop for the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railway. A railroad executive’s wife named it for Marfa, foster mother to the servant Smerdyakov in the Russian novel The Brothers Karamazov.

Ranchers moved in, grazing their herds on the wide plateau. They built many of the grand townhouses that give Marfa’s serene streets an elegant, timeless feel. And some became real-life versions of the cattle barons portrayed in the movie Giant, which was filmed in Marfa in 1955.

Actor James Dean came to Marfa before filming began, hanging out with real cowboys at corrals and feed lots to prepare for his role as ranch hand Jett Rink. It was Dean’s last performance. He died in a car wreck just a few weeks after leaving Texas. Autographed photos of Dean and co-stars Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor still hang in the lobby of the El Paisano Hotel, where the crew and some cast members stayed.

“We had a wonderful time being extras,’’ Bennett recalls. She and her husband appeared in two scenes “and they paid us $10 a day.’’

Marfa has been home to soldiers, too. Fort D.A. Russell, southwest of town, dates back to 1914, when the United States sent mounted troops to keep an eye on the Mexican Revolution.

Many newer residents are artists attracted by the scenery and the legacy of minimalist sculptor Donald Judd, who moved from New York to Marfa in 1971. Before his death in 1994, Judd established the Chinati Foundation for a permanent installation of large works of art and to sponsor art and music programs. The foundation is named for nearby Chinati Peak and headquartered on 340 acres at old Fort Russell. Renovated barracks and artillery sheds house works by Judd, John Chamberlain, and other contemporary artists.

Last October, the foundation unveiled a new fluorescent-light sculpture by Dan Flavin that occupies six buildings, the largest single work of the late minimalist sculptor.

But a much older light show in Marfa still attracts more attention. The Marfa Ghost Lights have appeared in the desert and surrounding mountains since the 1880s, bobbing balls of light that still puzzle residents and visitors. Theories to explain the lights include static electricity or escaping subterranean gas. Others believe they’re just ordinary light sources, distorted by atmospheric turbulence to produce a mirage effect.

“My speculation is that they’re similar to ball lightning, probably a consequence of underground electrical currents,’’ says Edson Hendricks, an electrical engineer and amateur physicist who has studied the lights for a decade.

No one has proved any of those theories. But “the lights are there,” says Kirby Warnock, a journalist and frequent visitor to the Big Bend area. “You can go out and see them for yourself.”

Dyanne Fry Cortez is a freelance writer in Austin, Texas.

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