Hotel Limpia

Limpia Creek, whose name is Spanish for "pure," rises on the northeastern flank of Mount Livermore, seventeen miles northwest of Fort Davis, and runs sixty-three miles northeast to Barrilla Draw in western Pecos County. For its first forty-two miles it runs through Limpia Canyon, the main avenue for early exploration and settlement of Jeff Davis County. Mexican buckeye, walnut, persimmon and desert willow grow along its rugged upper reaches, while the lower creek crosses flat to rolling country of scrub, grasses, creosote bush and cacti.

What the plaque says

Hotel Limpia Named for a nearby creek, was built here by the Union Trading Company in 1912. With a doctor's office, drugstore, stylish guest rooms, and spacious porches the hotel became a community social center where area news could be heard, a game of croquet played, or voting results observed. Guests included area ranchers and wealthy Texans, known locally as "Summer Swallows," who came for the cool summer climate. Converted for use as apartments and offices, the hotel housed Harvard University personnel for almost 25 years. The Hotel Limpia was reestablished in 1978.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Davis National Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A frontier post of 1854 to 1891 on the San Antonio-El Paso Road, garrisoned after the Civil War by Black regiments, with its buildings restored to their 1880 look.
• Davis Mountains State Park & Indian Lodge — 2.5 mi
  A 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps park above Fort Davis, with the CCC's Skyline Drive, the white adobe Indian Lodge and a trail down to the old fort.
• Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and Botanical Gardens — 4.8 mi
  The Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute's grounds south of Fort Davis, with an 18-acre botanical garden, a cactus museum and trails into the desert foothills.
• McDonald Observatory — 9.6 mi
  The University of Texas observatory on Mount Locke, founded with a Paris, Texas banker's fortune, with star parties three nights a week under some of the darkest skies in the country.

More markers nearby

• Old Fort Davis C. S. A. — steps away
• Confederate President Jefferson Davis — steps away
• Jeff Davis County — steps away
• Pioneer Cemetery — 0.5 mi