TERLINGUA — There has never been a shortage of loners or oddballs in south Brewster County, a bleak, isolated region that attracts errant souls seeking escape from modern society, a complicated past or even an inconvenient identity.

While armed and edgy conspiracy types can be found in the back country off Texas 118 and other hidden pockets, don’t look for them in the old ghost town of Terlingua, now a booming tourist mecca.

On a Friday night, the wait at the Starlight Theatre for a rib-eye and live music can be two or three hours. In certain boutique lodgings, the rooms are booked months in advance.

“We’re happy to have tourists. That’s how we live out here. My experience over the past 30 years is that Terlingua has never been closed off to outsiders,” said Betty Moore, who rents out rooms in the old miners’ homes.

Thus, the recent appearance of a production crew from California working on a reality show with a dubious premise — that Terlingua is an outpost of suspicious, standoffish outliers — has triggered a protective backlash.

Some fear that “Badlands,” planned as an eight-part series on the National Geographic channel, will make Terlingua into a Duck Dynasty of the desert.

“It’s my town and my friends, and I know what they are going to do, make us look like idiots,” said Buckner Cooke, a former reality show cameraman who lives in Terlingua.

More disturbing is the show’s announced plan to use a recent and tragic local homicide as a window into Terlingua’s troubled soul.

The killing last year of well-loved local bar owner Glenn Felts, allegedly by popular river raft guide Tony Flint, is still a raw wound for many residents.

On Monday, Flint goes to trial in Sierra Blanca on a murder charge.

“It’s a tragedy on both sides of the aisle here. They are taking something that is very painful to us and hideous to the families, and turning it into a sideshow,” said Linda Walker, a longtime resident and owner of horse stables.

From Bill Ivey, owner of most of the ghost town, to local journalists and businessmen, many with a deep stake in Terlingua are telling Original Productions to take a hike.

“From just the cast of characters they have chosen, I feel they are going to depict Terlingua as a perpetual Burning Man festival, with a stranger, psychotic twist to it, and I don’t want to be part of it,” Ivey said.

“I’ve spent 35 years promoting Terlingua as a destination for tourists and travelers to the Big Bend. Even though they offered me money to use Terlingua as a location, I said, 'No thank you,’” he added.

Others are even less diplomatic.

“I’ll tell ’em to go straight to hell. Reality shows are not reality, and when you get involved with folks like this, you can expect crap,” said Angie Dean, who came to Terlingua in 1989.

Dean, who ran the Starlight for a decade, fears that Terlingua’s image will be distorted by reality television.

“I’m sure it will show there are a lot of drunks down here. OK, in many ways that’s true. There are people who drink, but there are not people who drink and kill other people,” she added.

Repeated attempts to get comment from three Original Productions officials were unsuccessful. Eventually, the company referred questions to National Geographic television, which plans to show “Badlands.”

In an email, Chris Albert, a senior vice president, vowed that the series “will be held to the same rigors of authenticity and accuracy” as any National Geographic production.

Later, in response to questions, he said “Badlands” will focus on residents who live “off-the-grid lifestyles,” and is a “documentary vérité” show that will not used staged events.

The Felts-Flint case was just part of the series but not the focus, he wrote. He also downplayed the broad local pushback, saying it often occurs and would not “affect our final series or the portrayal of the town.”

On Tuesday, during the shooting of a scene at the edge of Terlingua, “Badlands” producer Adam Bradley spoke briefly with a reporter, while nearby his cameraman was filming scenes involving a rattlesnake. The snake was repeatedly positioned and repositioned near a “Terlingua Ghostown” sign by Tim Knight, a locally hired man.

Knight placed the snake at one point atop the 7-foot-tall sign, and it fell off twice. Bradley said the snake was found near the restaurant and was being removed as a menace to tourists. But Knight said the snake had been captured 13 miles out of town, was brought to Terlingua and would later be released.

Miners, hippies, tourists

The ongoing “Badlands” spat is only the latest odd chapter in Terlingua’s improbable history. A century ago, more than 1,000 people, most of them Mexican miners, lived here, extracting mercury ore and enjoying some amenities of civilized life.

Among them was the adobe movie house, built next to the company store in 1931, that six decades later would be given a new roof and be reborn as the Starlight Theatre and Restaurant.

But the Depression-era boomtown 10 miles from the Rio Grande began to fade in the 1930s, and in 1942, the Chisos Mining Co. declared bankruptcy.

After World War II, when all mining ceased, the population dispersed, leaving Terlingua a true ghost town, stripped for salvage and abandoned. For years, starting in 1967, it stirred only once a year, during the annual chili cook-off.

In 1973, Jerry Jeff Walker and the Lost Gonzo Band put it on the cultural map with his “Viva Terlingua,” album.

Still, well into the 1980s, Terlingua was little more than an outpost of hippies, river guides and other dropouts sharing the rocky ruins with the lizards and vinegaroons.

Eventually, people with money and ideas began arriving, and now Terlingua is rocking again. A celebration of opportunistic, unregulated development, it would be unrecognizable to survivors of that bygone era.

There are now several hundred permanent residents and about two dozen businesses, as well as some paved roads, cellphone service and spotty Wi-Fi.

These days, tourists from Dallas, Austin and Houston roll in daily to grab a longneck and catch the local musicians jamming on the front porch of the old trading post. Some stay to watch the sunset reflect off the Chisos Mountains to the east.

Others come to drink, eat and hear live music at the Starlight, the Boat House or the High Sierra Restaurant. Until Felts’ death, his bizarre cave bar was a revelation to drinkers who thought they had seen it all.

With its underground passageways, iron caldrons, giant redwood tables and open-mic nights, La Kiva was a favorite among locals as well.

But that’s apparently not how Original Productions sees Terlingua.

'Eyed with suspicion’

The problems began after a producer’s synopsis of the proposed eight-week show surfaced a few weeks ago.

“Hundreds of miles from the nearest city sits a small town in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert, populated by people who have given up modern comforts and financial security for something that money cannot buy: Freedom,” begins the synopsis.

It then veers off into fiction, according to some locals, when it makes the claim that “Terlingua is effectively closed off to outsiders; strangers are eyed with suspicion.”

Far more alarming is the company’s announced plan to tell it all “against the backdrop of a murder trial that has torn the community apart.”

Felts’ bludgeoning death Feb. 3, 2014, came after a long night of good-buddy hard boozing with Flint at the bar. Felts’ battered, shirtless body was discovered outside the morning after by an employee.

While there were no witnesses, police say the evidence indicates a violent altercation. Flint, who claims to have little memory of the night, reportedly told police that Felts had fallen.

Flint’s trial is expected to take two weeks, and in the way of small mercies to local sensibilities, no cameras or audio recording will be allowed in the courtroom in Sierra Blanca, more than 150 miles northwest of Terlingua.

District Attorney Rod Ponton said he was approached about the case by the producers of “Badlands” but declined to comment before the trial.

Some here are appalled that the crew that brought the world such fare as “Appalachian Outlaws,” “Storage Wars” and “Deadliest Catch,” will now get their hands on this painful tragedy.

“I think the whole idea is sensationalism and capitalizing on a murder,” said Moore, the woman who rents out rooms. “I think the whole community is against it. Just because I’m calm doesn’t mean my blood isn’t boiling.”

Among the first to sound the alarm was Pat O’Bryan, a local Internet entrepreneur and musician, who went public on his blog after he got a request from Original Productions producer David Scott Jones to use certain photos and video.

“From your synopsis, it’s obvious that you are starting with a false premise and are going to create your 'reality’ show to fit that premise,” O’Bryan wrote back. “Exploiting Glen’s death and Tony’s trial for profit and cheap sensationalism is inexcusable.”

John Waters, publisher of the Big Bend Gazette, likewise refused a request to use photos and accounts from his newspaper.

John Holroyd, the new owner of La Kiva, declined to let Original Productions film there. He said none of the three versions of the contract provided him with adequate legal protections.

His wife, Josephine, said the delicate nature of things also was a good reason to pass on the reality show.

“We have to re-create a legendary place. We’re starting in the place of Glenn, who was extremely popular. So, we have to be like Caesar’s wife. We have to be extremely careful in everything we do,” she said.

The last frontier

Not all Terlingua locals are saying no to Original Productions.

Herman and Deanna Castillo, owners of the High Sierra and the El Dorado Motel, are apparently cooperating, as are Archie Gill, owner of a local garage, and mechanic Mike Kasper.

They declined to talk to reporters last week; in some cases, after an Original Productions employee appeared and told them to keep quiet.

“We’re not going to talk about this movie thing, and that’s it,” said Gill, wearing a T-shirt that read “Live Free — Locked and Loaded” and displayed crossed firearms.

Ivey, the owner of most of the town, was raised in south Brewster County, where his father ran the Lajitas Trading Post, which catered mostly to Mexicans. That closed border icon is now part of an upscale golf resort.

Ivey said folks feel that Terlingua is the last connection to an authentic past and is too important a place to be the subject of a reality television show.

“People are protective of it and are very passionate about it,” he said.

“Years ago, people would come here and no one asked their last name. You could be who you wanted to be. It was OK. It was a place where people could run away from something,” he said.

“And it still is to a certain degree. It truly is the last frontier. It’s one of those places where you can feel comfortable without Big Brother watching over you,” he said.

jmaccormack@express-news.net