1983 Map of Pena Blanca Mountains

About this map

The Peña Blanca Mountains and Wood Hollow Mountains dominate this Brewster County landscape, defining a region where water management was essential to ranching operations. In the late 1970s, a network of windmills and tanks supported activity across the expansive terrain of Lightning Flat and Dagger Flat. Isolated water sources such as Reed Spring and the Wood Hollow Tank provided critical points of relief in an arid environment shaped by seasonal drainages like Hackberry Creek and Reynolds Creek. The placement of numerous named windmills, including the Little Shipping Trap Windmill and Saddle Gap Windmill, illustrates the extensive infrastructure required to maintain livestock in this high-desert territory. These features reveal the practical geography of West Texas land use, where family-named landmarks and functional sites like the Barrett Corner Windmill served as the primary coordinates for local life and navigation.