Lajitas is an unincorporated community in Brewster County, Texas, United States, near the Big Bend National Park. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 75 in 2010. History The settlement is named after the Boquillas flagstone found in the area. "Lajitas" translates to "little flat rocks" in Spanish. It was inhabited by aboriginal Mexicans for many years. They were then removed from the area by the Apache and Comanche tribes in the 18th and 19th centuries. The first white settlers came to the area in the mid-1800s. William H. Emory also visited Lajitas in 1852. The community boomed when quicksilver was discovered 11 miles from the community at the end of the decade. It then became a port of entry when several cattle ranches and mining enterprises appeared in Coahuila and Chihuahua in Mexico and increased commerce across the Rio Grande River. The crossing was described as a smooth, rock bottom, and was best between Del Rio and El Paso. Farming along the floodplain caused an even further boom, causing Lajitas to build a store, a saloon, and a custom house in 1912. The store and saloon were operated by H.W. McGuirk, who also helped manage the mining company in Terlingua and funded the construction of a church. A post office was established at Lajitas in 1904 and remained in operation until 1939. McGuirk petitioned for it to be re-established when it was built sometime before 1901. It closed temporarily in 1910 and reopened six years later. He then sold the land to Thomas V. Skaggs, who became successful in the Lajitas Wax Company, which sold candelilla wax. Commerce was interrupted by Pancho Villa and his bandits, bringing John J. Pershing and his troops to establish a cavalry post there in 1916. A motel stood on the same land in the 1980s. The Lajitas area was then bought by Rex Ivey, Jr., who brought electricity to the community in 1949 and sold part of it to Walter M. Mischer, a Houston entrepreneur and owner of Mischer Corporation. He restored the community in 1976 with his corporation's subsidiary, Arrow Development Company. The population of Lajitas plummeted to only four when Terlingua's quicksilver mines closed. By the mid-1980s, Lajitas became a resort town with 15 businesses serving 50 people. The old church in the community was restored, and the community grew to have three motels, a hotel,