The Sage of Langtry Texas

January 11, 2008
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar;
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are.

-- Ina D. Ogden, 1913

 

No one calls him a kid anymore, but 76-year-old Jack Skiles is every bit as nimble and sure-footed as the young goats he and his wife, Wilmuth, still raise on their Langtry ranch, 60 miles west of Del Rio and an atlatl spear-toss from Mexico.

The couple reside in their comfortable, 40-year-old home, built with Jack’s father, Guy, near the precipice of the family’s 300-acre parcel of land known in these parts as Eagle Nest Canyon. The box canyon’s terminus barely conceals one of the most important archeological sites in North America. Skiles tends livestock and stewards resources on 1,000 acres now, but his passions for community service and the remnants of ancient cultures are echoes of a refrain from an old hymn: “Brighten the corner where you are.”

Skiles and his family are well-educated folk, gracious hosts, highly-principled, savvy land managers, and engaging conversationalists. But none of those attributes, in recent decades, could save the family ranching business from sweeping changes in consumer tastes for fibers, costs of doing business, a steady decline of reliable workers, or the enthusiasm of children for more cosmopolitan careers. Still, the penchant for public service runs through the family.

For nine years, Skiles served on the board of directors of Rio Grande Electric Cooperative, president for two of those years. He oversaw the construction of the first Texas Department of Transportation Tourist Information Center at Langtry, then ran it for 18 years, retiring only to become superintendent of Comstock Schools, 1987-1992. Now, the Skiles’ first-born, Peggy, is a librarian for the Big Spring Independent School District, son Raymond is wildlife biologist and chief of the Science Division of Big Bend National Park, and Russell publishes the Lamesa, Texas, Lamesa Press-Reporter.

Skiles graduated from Del Rio High School in 1948, boarding with Del Rio Police Chief Herman Richter during the week, commuting back to Langtry on weekends. “So I never got to participate in any sports or extracurricular activities to speak of,” said Skiles, Wednesday (Dec. 19). “I was co-editor of the yearbook, and appeared in a one-act play, but that’s about it.”

Skiles father, Guy, created an ingenious method of pumping from the water table with a windmill – barely visible, upper right – on the rim of Eagle Nest Canyon, forcing the water into pipes suspended across the canyon, then up to the Skiles home on the opposite rim. Skiles said the system worked well until water was secured closer to the house. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

Dense exotic vegetation chokes the confluence where Eagle Nest Canyon meets the Rio Grande (top of photo). The river channel is nearly obscured by dense stands of Carrizo cane and tamarisk (salt cedar). Skiles says he remembers the area free of these water-guzzling plants, affording easy access to water and grassland for sheep and goats. Now, feral hogs prey on smaller animals, so Skiles can no longer use it. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

Jack and Wilmuth Skiles pose affectionately beside their cozy home on the rim above Eagle Nest Canyon. Built in 1968, the home is embellished with gardens, landscaping, a nearby goat corral, and – inside – collections of memorabilia, art and photographs chronicling family history. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

An east view from Eagle Cave provides another perspective from the gaping overhang that once afforded protected domicile for ancient people at least 4,000 years ago as evidenced by archeological studies of collected materials and rock art. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

 

There seems to be an educator’s gene that runs in the family. Wilmuth holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Sul Ross University, Alpine, then followed it quickly with a Master of Education. Jack’s Bachelor of Science, also from Sul Ross, was in range animal husbandry, amplified later by a Master of Arts in botany. At 20 years of age, he began teaching at tiny Rankin, Texas, 55 miles southeast of Odessa. “I wasn’t even old enough to vote, but here I was teaching science in junior high school,” Skiles said, laughing.

In 1958, Skiles took on a two-year stint as curator of the Monahans Sandhills Museum, about 35 miles southwest of Odessa. He secured a 1960 National Science Foundation grant to take additional coursework at the University of Texas in geology, anthropology, archeology and physics. “I also took a course in astronomy, thinking it might make me interested in that too, but, no, it didn’t,” Skiles quipped.

He was mentored there by W.W. Newcomb Jr., director of the Texas Memorial Museum, taking a new course created for Skiles in museology. It was preparation for later jobs and personal interests. At the time, Newcomb and Skiles pored over original drawings and paintings by Forrest Kirkland, arguably the dean of ancient Texas rock art studies. Years later – in 1967 – The University of Texas published his classic, The Rock Art of Texas Indians – Paintings by Forrest Kirkland, Text by W.W. Newcomb, Jr.

In 1962, Skiles took on his first school district superintendency at Paint Rock, Texas, barely a mile from the famed historic and prehistoric rock art that initially piqued Kirkland’s interest there, some 30 years earlier. Skiles befriended the Campbell family that owns the property, seeing Paint Rock and re-fueling his own interest that really began in childhood, in Eagle Nest Canyon.

Balmorhea, Texas was Skiles’ next superintendency, and it became a milestone in Texas education. Complaining to Texas School Superintendent J.W. Edgar that small, rural schools were ill-equipped to provide resources for students that were commonplace in large urban areas, Edgar replied, “Well, Mr. Skiles, Balmorhea children deserve education as good as kids in Dallas.” A new concept in area school technical support, curriculum development, and training was thus created in Alpine, the West Texas Innovative Education Center. According to Skiles, the project became the pioneer for Texas’ modern network of Education Service Centers, such as Region XV that services this area.

In 1968, Jack and Wilmuth Skiles came back to Langtry to build a new home, perched on the edge of scenic Eagle Nest Canyon. But that abyss was far more than scenic to the couple. It contained the memories of his earliest interest in archeology. “Mother and Dad were always digging in these Indian caves down there. Just about anywhere you went, there was an Indian cave nearby,” said Skiles.

When Skiles was born, the nation was gripped by the crippling “Great Depression,” but archeologists had learned of the cultural riches secreted in caves and overhanging limestone shelters along the Pecos River and the Rio Grande. Scholars and scientists built long ladders into the canyon, such as at Eagle Cave, immediately below the Skiles home on the rim above. “He used to carry me on his back down that ladder into the canyon, and my mother [Vashti Skiles] was always hollering, ‘Hold on, hold on!’”

In the Witte Museum in San Antonio, a second-floor exhibit area is devoted to the ancient cultures of the Lower Pecos. There, in a display case, is a leather string apron credited to Guy Skiles, Jack’s father. “When they got done with their digging, Dad traded that little apron for the boards from their ladder. I guess during the Depression, Dad was glad to have some lumber,” Skiles said, Thursday (Dec. 27).

Thomas Skiles, the American family patriarch, came to the New World in 1664, and Jack’s great great grandfather, Col. James Rumsey Skiles, arrived in Texas’ statehood year, 1845, settling at Falls City, 60 miles southeast of San Antonio. His son, Charles Henry Skiles, named the baby who would become Jack’s grandfather after the Texas pioneer, James Rumsey Skiles. “I only heard him called Jim. He came out here as a carpenter and a ranch hand, but, in 1911, he helped build the schoolhouse in Langtry. I never knew him; I was probably four years old when he died. He never owned land,” said Skiles.

Jack’s father, Guy, born in 1898, owned little land, but worked for those who had a lot, including, first a large ranch in Mexico, then the Ingram Ranch situated along the Pecos River, about 27,000 acres. When Jack returned to Langtry to build a home, the Traveler Information Center and its extensive cactus garden, he ranched about 7,000 acres of leased land, with an initial herd of 900 sheep. Sons Raymond and Russell were in the eighth and ninth grades. “I didn’t have to hire help here for a long time,” Skiles said with a smile. The boys helped with horseshoeing, breaking horses, rounding up sheep and all the tasks that go with it. “Now I only have about 60 sheep, but they get me out of the house,” Skiles said, smiling again.

“Back in the 1930s, many people could eke out a good living on two or three sections [1,280 -1920 acres], but it soon became impossible if you didn’t have several thousands of acres, 30 sections [19,200] or more,” said Skiles. “Then the big drought of the 1950s ran a lot of people out of the ranching business … Now, hardly any of the original ranching families are still here. All this country is either sold to rich people from Houston or Dallas, or they’re letting hunters support them… A lot of the old ranches are breaking up. There’s a sign up on the highway now that says “400 acres, 11,000 acres, however much you want to buy,” said Skiles, not smiling now.

Skiles has spent a lifetime balancing his interests in biology and archeology, but as a framework to the cultural history, biology possesses the landmarks. “The biggest milestone in the history of ranching here was eradication of the screw-worm. When we’d find our sheep with worms, we had to catch ‘em, feed ‘em, doctor ‘em, and then they died anyway,” he said, adding that it was fruitless, dirty, stinking, thankless work. Deer, he said, virtually disappeared from the landscape before and during the Depression, needed, regardless of hunting seasons, by hungry people, further devastated by the screw-worm. Eradication of that worm, Skiles said, restored white-tailed deer populations, and now a lot of ranchers depend on the herds for revenues.

Ranching along the Rio Grande now is beset with more biological hazards than Skiles has solutions to soothe his frustrations. “What messed us up was Lake Amistad,” said Skiles. “It’s just about ruined this country.” Citing vast and deep deposits of silt – expected from most reservoir impoundments – Skiles said the fine-particle soils washed downstream with no opportunity to flush, south simply pile up on the bottom of the Amistad “catch basin,” now filling creek bottoms with 35 feet of mud where fishing had been good, squandering adjacent riparian grasslands where grazing was once top-notch.

Telephone and telegraph insulators decorate and shield the tops of fence posts at another old Skiles home near the rim of Eagle Nest Canyon. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)	Skiles points out the evidence of what anthropologists have identified as Chagas disease that killed the person found in a near-mummified state in one of the Eagle Nest Canyon caves. The parasite prevents efficient digestion, and the person was fitted with leather strips to girdle a swelling abdomen before death. The mummy is one of hundreds of interesting ranching memorabilia and prehistoric objects collected in Skiles’ private museum near his home in Langtry. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)
A mural by Texas Parks & Wildlife Department artist Nola Davis, displayed at Seminole Canyon State Park & Historic Site, illustrates how the demise of thousands of bison must have appeared as they plunged off the edge of what is now called Bonfire Shelter in Skiles’ Eagle Nest Canyon. From about 12,000 years ago to historic times, natives herded the hapless buffalo to this precipice to secure food and, presumably, hide and fur for clothing. (Contributed art/Texas Beyond History) (click image to enlarge)	Sheep ready for shearing on a ranch between Langtry and Dryden show the wrinkled fleece that made shearing difficult decades ago, a characteristic eventually bred out of most flocks, according to Skiles. (Contributed photo/Jack Skiles) (click image to enlarge)
Jack Skiles, owner and steward of ancient hunter-gatherer sites in Eagle Nest Canyon, 60 miles northwest of Del Rio, gestures in the expanse of Eagle Cave. The 200-foot-wide limestone overhang immediately below his home on the rim above includes 4,000-year-old paintings and evidence of centuries of habitation and use. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge) \	Skiles points to remnants of once-vivid rock art paintings in Eagle Cave, copied for permanent reference by renowned archeologist Forrest Kirkland on August 2, 1935. Kirkland’s brilliant renditions appear in W.W. Newcomb’s book, The Rock Art of Texas Indians, first published in 1967. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)
Mineral and biological staining create an abstraction of color around a 10-foot-diameter hole worn through the rim of Eagle Nest Canyon by water erosion over thousands of years. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)	Skiles describes how the family’s old sheep pens guided flocks through a series of barriers to permit marking, shearing and any other care needed. A few steps away from here actor Robert Redford found an arrowhead while in the area filming, and declined Skiles offer to bunk at the house, choosing instead to sleep in his bedroll on the canyon rim. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

 

Worst of all, Skiles says, the pervasive silt beds have become nurseries for invasive exotic plants – Carrizo river cane and tamarisk, or salt cedar – strangling populations of native species and sucking vast quantities of water from the water that should be flowing toward the Gulf of Mexico.

And then, there are the hogs. Feral hogs, vicious predatory beasts that reproduce with almost no limits from predators – human or otherwise – to keep them in check, have flourished, Skiles says, in the thickets of cane spawned by the Amistad silt beds. Standing on a bluff above the confluence of Eagle Nest Canyon and the Rio Grande, gazing toward Mexico across the choking stands of cane and salt cedar, Skiles hears a snuff, then a series of snorts a hundred feet below, in his beloved canyon. And a rifle is useless. The hogs can’t be seen through the choking foliage. All Skiles can do is listen, and shake his head.

But, on this issue, the optimism that buoys land holders in this scrubby, spiny, hardscrabble corner of Texas is now – ironically and incidentally – fed by the actions of U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway (R-11th District of Texas). Conaway’s 36-county district also includes San Angelo, Midland and Odessa, but it’s the border counties watching his latest legislative initiative.

Conaway’s amendment to the House appropriations bill for next fiscal year for Homeland Security passed just before the Christmas recess, authorizing an earmark of $5 million for removal of “tactical cover,” vegetation that hinders the observation and contradiction of illegal immigrants and smugglers. “By creating a pilot program for the Border Patrol to use to eradicate invasive species of weeds, our agents will be safer and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and cameras will be more effective in stemming the tide of illegal immigrants crossing our border,” said Conaway in a Dec. 18 press release.

But Skiles sleeps at night knowing that he still has a few goats, and that a prized archeological site remains protected and revered among archeologists. “I’ve got sheep that produce wool and meat, but – with the prices of wool right now – I only shear once a year, instead of twice. And I’ve got both Boer and Spanish goats. I like those ol’ Spanish goats; I think they taste a little better,” Skiles said.

Bonfire Shelter, a world-famous archeological site, is also protected on Skiles’ property. The cavernous overhang, shielded at the entrance by a massive pile of rock talus, is the site of North America’s oldest known and southernmost “buffalo jump,” where natives shooed herds of bison over the rim of Eagle Nest Canyon, onto the killing rocks below. Incredibly, evidence shows that they began such slaughters about 12,000 years ago, with Bison antiquus, an extinct species, and continued using the precipice until at least 8,000 years ago, killing an entirely new species, the modern Bison bison, the buffalo we know today.

“This place is absolutely of international importance,” said Jack Johnson, archeologist with the Shumla International Center for Archeological Research and Education, Thursday (Dec. 27). “Clearly, there are other similarly important sites, but this is a very important one. I have friends in Argentina studying archeology, and this is one site in North America they have to study.” For more on this incredible archeological site, see the wonderful “Texas Beyond History” Web site, http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/bonfire/index.html

Through all these diverse interests and stewardship responsibilities, Skiles continues to enthusiastically nourish the communities in which he lives. Skiles served on the Val Verde County Historical Commission for 30 years, is also on the Big Bend Natural History Association board, the Langtry Water Supply Corporation, and the Vashti Skiles Community Center in Langtry.