ALPINE

city, seat (1887) of Brewster county, extreme western Texas, U.S., in a high valley with an altitude of 4,481 feet (1,366 m), flanked by the Davis Mountains (north) and the Glass Mountains (east), 190 miles (306 km) southeast of El Paso. Founded in 1882 with the arrival of the railroad, Alpine developed as a service centre for a huge ranching area (sheep and Hereford cattle) and later as a mountain resort with dude ranches and ghost mining towns. Davis Mountains State Park, Fort Davis National Historic Site, and McDonald Observatory are a few miles northwest (see Davis Mountains), while Big Bend National Park (q.v.) is 80 miles south. Alpine's economy was further sustained by the establishment there in 1917 of a normal college, now Sul Ross State University (with Museum of Big Bend on its campus). Brewster county, with an area of 6,204 square miles (16,068 square km), greater than that of the state of Connecticut, is the largest county in Texas. Pop. (1990) 5,622; (1994 est.) 5,825.