Mountain Man
As part of his reporting on the Christmas Mountains story (“This Land Is His Land,” May 2008), executive editor Sam Gwynne traveled to Big Bend with Texas land commissioner Jerry Patterson in his private plane.
An hour after landing at the giant 204,000-acre subdivision known as Terlingua Ranch, Jerry Patterson, Sam Gwynne, and three others were scrambling up the rough dirt roads of the Christmas Mountains on ATVs belonging to the General Land Office. This is Commissioner Patterson about halfway up the mountains.
