In 1882 the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway reached Presidio County, and the railroad’s township company platted Marfa, which became the county seat in 1885. Marfa’s economic mainstay in the first half of the twentieth century was the U.S. military, which established Fort D. A. Russell (FV25) in 1911 to protect the Big Bend region from incursions during the Mexican Revolution. A short-lived oil exploration boom in the 1920s led to construction of the El Paisano Hotel (FV22) and a number of commercial buildings. However, no exploitable amount of oil or gas was found.
The filming of George Stevens’s Giant (1955) brought Marfa a measure of international fame that still draws visitors. But launching the town into the stratosphere of global consciousness was artist Donald Judd (1928–1994) who moved to Marfa from New York City in 1977. With support from New York’s Dia Foundation, Judd bought downtown buildings as well as barracks and other structures at Fort D. A. Russell for a series of site-specific art installations. By the time of his death, Judd had put Marfa on the map of cultural celebrity, enabling the economically declining town to reinvent itself as a cosmopolitan art destination. Judd eventually owned ten spaces (studios, living quarters, libraries, and galleries) in Marfa and nearly 40,000 acres of ranchland in southern Presidio County. The Chinati and Judd foundations continue to collect and exhibit art works.
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