When the Trump administration announced plans earlier this year for sweeping new border projects in the Big Bend, West Texans from across the political spectrum rose up in opposition. Conservation and cultural groups filed lawsuits. Biologists raced to document threatened plants and animals. And Tom Alex fired up his drone.
Alex, who retired in 2014 after three decades as Big Bend National Park archeologist, knows archeology along the Rio Grande like few others. With drone photography, he’s been documenting scores of sites that could be damaged or destroyed by border projects.
He paused his research last month – after a U.S. district judge halted border construction here. But as the U.S. Supreme Court considers greenlighting that construction, Alex is poised to resume.
“And so I was able to pull their map up and zoom in on it,” Alex said, “and I saw how many archeological sites, historical sites, it was going to cut right through the middle of. And I'm going, my God.”
In Big Bend National Park, the administration’s so-called “smart wall” plans call for a riverside patrol road, trenches for utility cables and towers with surveillance technology. Based on earlier research, Alex quickly identified more than 100 sites threatened by the construction.
Since his retirement, Alex has used drones to document historic Trans-Pecos cemeteries. In June, with a park-service research permit, he began using the technology in Big Bend – creating ultra-high-resolution photographs of imperiled sites.
The Rio Grande has, of course, long been a nexus for human activity, and the sites here span millennia. Some stand out. Near Mariscal Mountain, Alex documented the foundations of some 45 stone-circle dwellings. Such dwellings are associated with the “Cielo Complex,” a nomadic Big Bend culture from around the time of Spanish arrival.
“And the road that the border patrol wants to put through there – and you're talking about a 40- to 50-foot-wide disturbance area, maybe more – cuts right through the center of this site,” Alex said.
Near the Sierra Chino Campground, along the park’s River Road, Alex recorded a site with a cemetery and stone corrals and buildings. In the 1920s, people processed wax from native candelilla plants here. “Smart wall” construction would probably level part of the site.
Alex noted that park resources have already been compromised. In August, bulldozing near Santa Elena Canyon damaged the historic Sublett Farm site, an early 20th century homestead.
Alex is working beyond the park – flying his drone in the rugged country upstream of Candelaria, where a 30-foot wall threatens untold archeological resources. And this fall, he’ll participate in excavations at an important site near Redford.
The Polvo Site was a farming village, probably dating back to at least 1200 CE. In the 17th century, the Spanish built a mission here. Little excavation has been done, and the site preserves a pivotal chapter in Big Bend and Texas history.
The border wall would pass through the site of centuries-old homes and burials, as well as the Spanish mission, Alex said.
“What we're trying to do with the archeological work is to go in and assess what we can determine about that site,” he said, “what we can find, and try to recover as much data from the site as possible before it's lost.”
Border projects will mean profound losses for Big Bend heritage, Alex said, in a region where rugged topography has always limited illegal entry.
“It's the lowest illegal entry in the U.S.,” he said. “That is the point. And it's not a matter of what kind of thing you're going to build there. There's no need for any of it.”
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