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Terlingua

A quicksilver ghost town near Big Bend

The adobe ruins of Terlingua, Texas
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Terlingua, in the desert of West Texas near Big Bend National Park, was a mercury-mining town of some 2,000 people in the early 1900s, extracting quicksilver from cinnabar ore. When the mines closed the town emptied, and today its adobe ruins, old cemetery, and a handful of residents make it a cult destination, famous for an annual championship chili cook-off.

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