Marfa travel guide

Marfa is a city located in the high desert of far West Texas in the Southwestern United States. The population was 2,121 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Presidio County Its ZIP code is 79843.
Marfa was founded in the early 1880s as a railroad water stop, and grew quickly through the 1920s. Marfa Army Air Field (Fort D.A. Russell) was located east of the town during World War II and trained several thousand pilots before closing in 1945 (the abandoned site is still visible ten miles east of the city). The base was also used as the training ground for many of the U.S. Army's Chemical mortar battalions. The Marfa Airport is located 3 miles North of the city.
Today Marfa is a tourist destination, located between the Davis Mountains and Big Bend National Park. Attractions include the historical architecture and classic Texas town square, modern art, soaring, and the Marfa Lights.
Amateur etymologist Barry Popik has shown that Marfa is named after Marfa Strogoff, a character in the Jules Verne novel Michael Strogoff and its theatrical adaptation; the origin was reported in the Galveston Daily News on December 17, 1882, after the Marfa railroad station was established but before Marfa received a post office in 1883. The town is sometimes incorrectly said to be named after a character in the Fyodor Dostoevsky novel The Brothers Karamazov. The Brothers Karamazov, which was published in Russian in 1880, was not even translated into English until many years later. (...) more....