I’m Loco For Lobo, and You Should Be, Too!
Lobo is a ghost town now, but it is brimming with potential. And you can get in on the ground floor!
Friday, April 28, 2023
In this week’s installment of Life Its Ownself, I am offering you, an exclusive group limited to my closest friends and anyone else who happens to click on this link, an amazing opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the most exciting development in the Trans-Pecos hospitality industry since Antonin Scalia died with a pillow over his head under unfortunate circumstances in a luxury resort whose name shall not be mentioned due to the threat of litigation.
Please read the fine print at the bottom for all the usual disclosures about due diligence, being swindled, etc.[i]
Even if you choose not to disgorge a significant portion of your life savings to invest in this miraculous opportunity, I hope you will LIKE this post and SHARE it with at least one friend.
Like many boys growing up in Texas, I was captivated by the myth of the American West and the ranchers and cowboys who “tamed” it from the “depredations of the Indians,” as a plaque in Marathon states.
I watched “Rawhide” and “Bonanza,” admiring the struggle against nature, the elements, and less noble men that played out every week.
Cut to my so-called adulthood. In 1994, I purchased a 53-acre ranchette in the Hill Country north of Blanco. It had a big house, a creek that flowed most of the year, and some nice hills and dales. I inked a deal with my neighbor to run some cows on the property in order to preserve that all-important agriculture exemption. I told friends I was a gentleman rancher “who was neither a gentleman nor a rancher; discuss amongst yourselves.”
But circumstances change and time moves on, and I sold that ranch a few years later. I’ve spent the last 25 years with my mind roamin’ and my heart longin’ to be gazing out upon my own beautiful slice of Texas, which Sam Houston described as “the finest portion of the globe that has ever blessed my vision.”
I made a few abortive attempts to buy a slab of Texas. I thought I’d get the world-famous 6666 Ranch in North Texas, but I was outbid by only $192 million when it was eventually sold to that “Yellowstone” guy for $192,202,200. Then I thought I’d buy the Brewster Ranch out by Marathon, especially after they knocked down the price from $413 million to $230 million. That did not work out, unfortunately. I thought I was home free when I tried to buy the 20,000-acre Desert Mountain Ranch south of Marathon for a mere $8,067,480, but my banker would not return my phone calls.
You can imagine, therefore, how excited I was when I read this Texas Monthly story about the charming ghost town of Lobo, Texas, which is for sale. Lobo is somewhere between Valentine and Van Horn on Highway 90 in the Trans-Pecos, which means that it is not in the middle of nowhere but, rather, 20 miles either way from two middles of nowhere. That’s some serious middle of nowhere.
When water was discovered in the area during the mid-1800s, Lobo became a stop on the stagecoach and, later, railroad lines. In 1907, a post office was established and the town was formally named. By 1915, the population was a healthy 20, but two earthquakes in the next 20 years halved that amount.
Although the post office closed in 1942, the town became the center of a local mining and cotton economy, which expanded the town’s population to about 90 by the mid-1960s. But about then, the town ran out of water (cotton – duh!) and its economy collapsed.
Since the mid-1970s, the town has passed through a series of owners, including some Germans who purchased it in 2001 and used it to host a film festival that’s been held intermittently. But they have now put it on the market.
Which is why last week I moseyed over to Marfa to meet up with my good friend Marfawitz, who was going with me to check out Lobo. I suggested that maybe we would put down an offer on the town and he replied that his wife told him under absolutely no circumstances could he do so.
We started our adventure with lunch at Marfa Burrito. Then, heading west, we took the obligatory selfie in front of the Prada Marfa art installation — which, to the surprise of many tourists, is 35 miles west of Marfa in Valentine.
We continued west, impelled by the same hunger for discovery and conquest that have despoiled much of the American West. Fortunately Marfawitz was familiar with the metropolitan Lobo area, having visited it in the past. There’s a road that loops around Lobo past some farms and fields. Cows wander alongside the road, providing a veritable berm of cow pies to keep us centered in the right of way.
At one point, the Chispa Road heads off to the southwest. If you drive the Chispa Road – not advisable without a four-wheel drive vehicle – you eventually get to Candelaria, which is another of the charming “middles of nowhere” that dot the Trans-Pecos. Marfawitz and I resolved that we would drive the Chispa Road on a future adventure.
Having circumnavigated Lobo from the south and west, we were ready to visit the central business district, such as it is. It turns out to be a) very small, only 10 acres, and b) walled off from the depredations of folks like Marfawitz and me by barbed wire. We had to settle for viewing it from the side of the highway, where TxDOT has thoughtfully provided a turnout lane that runs along the entire frontage of the town.
Lobo is, I must admit, a bit rundown. There are only a few buildings, and certainly nothing of the grandeur of the hotel that was there a century ago
Instead, there is a vacant four-room motel which, in my opinion, probably had a certain je nais se quoi in the old days.
And a couple of the town’s buildings at least had some Lobo branding on them:
The most notable building in town, though, was the old gas station right up against the highway, which has this wonderful painting on it:
As Marfawitz and I surveyed the glory that had once been Lobo, our minds were raging torrents, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
ME: We should buy the town and put a roadside restaurant here!
MARFAWITZ: Are you crazy? This is the middle of nowhere!
ME: Who would not want to stop here on a blistering hot summer’s day for a cool glass of iced tea and steaming bowl of fresh homemade New England clam chowder?
MARFAWITZ: There is no fresh homemade New England clam chowder within a hundred miles of here.
ME: That’s my point. We could corner the market.
MARFAWITZ: There’s a reason for that. One, you cannot get fresh ingredients out here, and two, who wants to eat clam chowder in 100-degree heat?
ME: OK. Maybe we do clam chowder in the fall and winter and, say, gazpacho in the spring and summer.
At this point, Marfawitz felt it necessary to remind me that his wife had told him that under absolutely no circumstances could he buy Lobo or otherwise participate in one of my goofy schemes.
Dear friends, their loss is your opportunity. Which is why I am reaching out to tell you about this amazing deal. For a modest portion of your life savings, I’m offering you the chance to invest in a one-of-a kind restaurant in the middle of the middle of nowhere, with a questionable water supply and the nearest grocery store at least 20 miles away, run by a person with absolutely no experience in the food service or hospitality industries, and serving a bespoke menu of cuisine that is available nowhere in a 200-mile radius for good reasons.
Call now! Operators are standing by!
You meet the coolest people … At Marfa Burrito we met Sara and Jay, who are riding bicycles all the way across America. They’d started in San Diego, and were taking a rest day in Marfa before continuing east. The only awkward pause in our conversation was when we told them we were headed to Lobo, which they’d ridden past a couple days before. “Why?” they asked. Anyway, you can follow the Instagram feed of their trip here.
[i] Swindler? Why, I barely knew her!
Thanks for making me chuckle and crafting "Marfawitz" - perfect. Give David my best next time y'all have an adventure.
I want to go! What an adventure! And while not much, I'd invest! :)