Terlingua: Starlight Theatre

The Starlight Theatre sits in the ghost town of Terlingua, two hours from the nearest interstate and about as far from the music industry as you can get in Texas. This is precisely what makes it extraordinary.

Terlingua was a mercury mining town that peaked in the early 1900s and largely emptied out by the 1940s. The ruins of the old company buildings still stand on the hill above town. In 1991, a restaurant and saloon opened in a restored structure in the ghost town plaza — named the Starlight Theatre for the open-air cinema that once occupied the site. It has run continuously since then, and it has become one of the most beloved live music rooms in Texas despite — or because of — its total isolation.

The Starlight sits at 631 Ivey Road, in what passes for the center of Terlingua. The dining room serves serious food: chicken-fried wild boar, axis venison, bowls of real Texas chili, and a menu that changes with what is available. The bar is full and well-stocked. Live music plays Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, and when there is no scheduled act inside, the porch outside the front door almost always has someone picking.

The Music at the End of the Road

The Starlight books Texas and Americana artists who make the pilgrimage to Big Bend country. Some do it because they love the landscape. Others do it because they know the crowd — a self-selected group of travelers, river guides, park rangers, and long-term desert dwellers who listen closely and respond generously. Consequently, artists who play the Starlight tend to play their best sets there. The room demands it.

Indeed, the Starlight has become something of a Texas music institution. It appears on lists of essential Texas venues, gets mentioned in travel writing about Big Bend, and draws visitors who plan their entire trip around a show. The combination of location, food, and music is simply hard to replicate elsewhere.

Getting There and Making the Most of It

Terlingua is not on the way to anywhere else. You go there on purpose. The nearest city with lodging is Alpine, about an hour north on Highway 118, which makes the Starlight a destination that rewards a night in the area rather than a quick stop. Big Bend National Park is twenty minutes away. The Rio Grande is close enough to hear in the right kind of silence. For the full West Texas music corridor — from El Paso to the Big Bend — the Texas Stagecoach Saloon in El Paso is where the route begins.