Celia Hill's Headin' West

Celia Smith Hill's journal provides a fascinating glimpse into the hardscrabble life settlers found on far West Texas borderlands during the last century. Celia Hill's family moved to Texas from Tennessee in the late 1800s. They suffered lean times during the Depression before cinnabar (mercury ore) was discovered on her family's property. During World War II, the Fresno Mines supplied one-tenth of all the mercury-essential to the war effort-produced in the United States. After graduating from college, Celia began a peripatetic teaching career that lasted decades, marrying and losing two husbands along the way. Finally, living alone along the most remote western border of Texas, Celia spent her later years selling snacks to the occasional visitor. Bill Wright met Celia at her La Junta General Store in Ruidosa, where she told him about her unfinished journal. After her death, Wright and Marianne Wood researched the history of the area and interviewed family and friends to provide context for Hill's colorful tale of endurance in an unforgiving landscape. With this book Wright fulfills his promise to share her courageous and fascinating life with others.