Lajitas

LAJITAS, TEXAS . Lajitas is on the western edge of Big Bend National Park in southwestern Brewster County. It is at an altitude of 2,200 feet on a bluff overlooking the Rio Grande at the San Carlos ford of the old Comanche Trail , in the northern part of the Chihuahuan Desert and at the southern extreme of the Rocky Mountains. The name Lajitas is Spanish for "little flat rocks" and refers to the Boquillas flagstone of the area. The region was inhabited by Mexican Indians for many years. They were driven from the area by the Apaches and later by the Comanches during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Anglo-Americans first arrived in the mid-1800s. In 1852 Lt. William H. Emory visited the site.