Exploring the Big Bend Country

by Peter Koch, June Cooper Price

Photographer-naturalist Peter Koch first visited the new Big Bend National Park in February, 1945, on assignment to take promotional pictures for the National Park Service. He planned to spend a couple of weeks—and ended up staying for the rest of his life. Koch's magnificent photographs and documentary film-lectures Big Bend, Life in a Desert Wilderness and Desert Gold introduced the park to people across the United States, drawing thousands of visitors to the Big Bend. His photographs and films of the region remain among the best ever produced, and are an invaluable visual record of the first four decades of Big Bend National Park. In this highly readable book, Koch's daughter June Cooper Price draws on the newspaper columns her father wrote for the Alpine Avalanche , supplemented by his photographs, journal entries, and short pieces by other family members, to present Peter Koch's vision of the Big Bend. The book opens with his first "big adventure," a six-day photographic trip through Santa Elena Canyon on a raft made from agave flower stalks. From there, Koch takes readers hiking on mountain trails and driving the scenic loop around Fort Davis. He also describes "wax smuggling" and other ways of making a living on the Mexican border; ranching in the Big Bend; the prehistory and Native Americans of the region; collaborating with botanist Barton Warnock on books of Trans-Pecos wildflowers; and the history and beauty of Presidio County, the Rio Grande, and the Chihuahuan Desert. This fascinating blend of firsthand adventures, natural history, and personal musings on anthropology and history creates an unforgettable portrait of both Peter Koch and the Big Bend region he so loved.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

192 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2007

Reviews

[carl theaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice combination of travel-nostalgia-history with this collection of articles Peter Koch wrote throughout the 50s and 60s along with additional insights and stories from family members. Not to mention since he was a photographer…plenty of black and white photographs.

As a professional photographer, Koch was asked to ’stop by’ the new Big Bend National Park in 1944 on his way to his primary assignment. Big Bend is considered to be out in the middle of nowhere now, one can imagine getting there in 1944, it must have been like going to Mars.

He became enamored with the wild and rugged region, moved his family there, and became one of the areas biggest proponents for exploration and preservation.

His daughter, co-author June Price put this together in 2007, after her father passed away. It’s a fitting tribute to his work and a great primer for visiting the region, which we plan to do later this month (March 2024)

[Marieta Grissom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish I had read this book before traveling to the Big Bend area. It would make a wonderful traveling and hiking guide!

While each chapter is a separate story, the chapters blend easily together and tell about the area in the first couple decades after World War II.

This book along with "Lizards on the Mantel, Burros at the Door: A Big Bend Memoir" by Etta Koch and June Cooper Price and J. O. Langford's "Big Bend: A Homesteader's Story" provide excellent background material prior to visiting the area. I had read the latter two before our visit but wish I had also read this one.

[Vance · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course I picked this up prior to an inaugural visit to Big Bend National Park and 'average' rating be damned, this is recommended should you follow my footsteps. As a collection of writings by Peter Koch, the difficulty is that this work broaches too many themes. Ostensibly a tour guide, the writings are dated (most penned between 1950-80), but still convey the allure of this national park. The book was compiled by one of Koch's children and another (possibly unintended) theme is a tribute.

Peter Koch was a Romanian immigrant to the USA who stumbled upon Big Bend, fell in love with this rugged environment, relocated his family and lived there the remainder of his life (over 40 years!). I knew nothing about Peter, but truly wish I could have met him. Throughout his writings you develop a deep sense of a person who cherished wild country and strove to share the splendor while doing all he could to preserve it. This is reinforced by some exceptional passages at the conclusion...quite inspiring!

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who long for more of Edward Abbey's essays and remembrances of his desert life, the tales of Peter Koch and his explorations of and deep love for the Big Bend area of West Texas and the Rio Grande are just what the doctor ordered.