Federico Villalba

The mine and community Villalba helped start took their name from Will Study, pronounced Stoody, manager of the Big Bend or Study Butte mercury mine. The adobe walls of the Study Butte store carried bullet scars from the Mexican Revolution. A post office ran from 1917 to 1921. In 1940 about sixty people lived there, working mainly for the Rainbow Mercury Mine; the mine closed in the late 1940s, reopened in 1970 and stopped again in 1972. By 2000 Study Butte had 267 residents, many drawn by Big Bend National Park next door.

What the plaque says

Federico Villalba Villalba family tradition traces their lineage to Algiers where several generations were members of the order of Santiago. In 1764, Federico's great-grandfather, Juan Villalba, traveled to New Spain (Mexico). He founded Rancho Villalba in 1773 near present-day Aldama, Chihuahua, where Federico Villalba was born in 1858. Federico left his family's ranch and moved to San Carlos near the U.S.-Mexico border. He set up a store, selling rope, leather goods and sundries; it soon became important in San Carlos, and eventually supplied the military in the area. In the early 1880s, Villalba expanded his business interests into Texas. He settled in an area he called Cerro Villalba and opened a store. In 1889, Federico married Maria Cortez and began purchasing land. In 1902, Villalba located an outcrop of cinnabar, a mineral that produces mercury, and became the first Hispanic in the county to file a mining claim. Villalba, Tiburcio de la Rosa, D. Alarcon, and William study entered into a partnership that covered six parcels of twenty-one acres each, including what became known as the study butte mine. The Associated Mining Community took on the mine's name (Study Butte), as did Villalba's store (Study Butte Store). With a growing family, Federico built a larger house on his property along Terlingua Creek and named it Rancho Barras. Villalba amassed large tracts of land, including 15 sections in block G-4, with holdings extending from Burro Mesa to Terlingua Creek. During his life, Federico gained a reputation as a businessman and rancher, and as an advocate for Mexican Americans of the Big Bend. Villalba died of natural causes in 1933 on his ranch and is buried in Terlingua Cemetery. Federico and his legacy embody the spirit of a Texas pioneer. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Terlingua Ghost Town — 0.3 mi
  The stone shells of the Chisos Mining Company's quicksilver camp west of Study Butte, where a Chicago owner made a fortune from a mine he seldom came to see.
• Big Bend Ranch State Park — 9.2 mi
  The largest park in the Texas system, more than 300,000 acres of volcanic desert and river canyon west of Big Bend, bought from a working ranch in 1988.
• Santa Elena Canyon — 11 mi
  The Rio Grande's 1,500-foot-deep slot through limestone at the west end of Big Bend National Park, reached by a short trail at the end of the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive.
• Castolon Historic District — 14 mi
  An army camp built in 1919 for the Mexican Revolution and never really used, which became La Harmonia's trading post for families on both sides of the river until 1961.

More markers nearby

• Terlingua — 0.4 mi
• Comanche Trail — 35 mi