Location
George Thurber
Topics
Description
George Thurber worked as a botanist, quartermaster and commissary for the U.S. Boundary Commission from 1850 through 1853, tasked with mapping and documenting the U.S./Mexico border following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Through the survey, Thurber (along with fellow naturalists Charles Parry, Charles Wright, Arthur Schott, John Bigelow and William Emory) provided one of the first comprehensive views of Trans-Pecos and Rio Grande flora. Thurber described and collected thousands of plant specimens, many of which he shared with leading botanists such as Asa Gray and John Torrey. Thurber’s contributions are recognized in the landmark Report of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, and in the names of Thurber’s stemsucker, Thurber’s muhly and other plants.
Location Notes
A Thurber marker could be placed at La Familia Nature Center, at the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park in Mission. The site would connect with Thurber's comment to John Torrey (letter posted from El Paso, Texas on March 8, 1852, George Thurber Papers, Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University) about the "lush thickets" he observed in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. This kind of thicket is much like that in the Park, but now rare in the many paved and farmed areas of the Valley. Also, the Boundary survey team evidently followed the Military Road, which passed through or adjacent to the Park.