Folk Frontera

Along the U.S.-Mexico border, where the vast wilderness of Big Bend National Park is sliced through with smuggling routes and sparsely populated towns, meanders a road that ventures where even the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t deliver. Permanent residents and wayward pilgrims inhabit towns throughout far west Texas like Candelaria, Marathon, and Del Carmen. In these places, local folklore looms as large as the landscape, sometimes blurring the lines between veracity and a well-told tale. While many of the stories told about border towns focus on political banter, the stories told from within these towns take a far more personal tone. Their relative isolation leaves the towns along this route to craft their own distinctive cultures – blending Mexican, American, and unmapped myths into something slightly surreal and utterly unique.