A Spring-Fed Oasis in the Chihuahuan Desert
Balmorhea exists because of water you can't see coming. In a basin that gets only about 13 inches of rain a year, San Solomon Springs pushes millions of gallons of clear artesian water up out of the ground every day — enough to fill the world's largest spring-fed swimming pool at Balmorhea State Park and, for more than a century, to irrigate the farms around town.
The town's very name is a blend of its founders — Balcom, Morrow and Rhea — developers who platted it in 1906 around water that could turn caliche into cropland.
That spring water built the canals, the irrigation district and the alfalfa and cotton fields that still define the Toyah Valley. But the same desert that makes the springs miraculous makes every drop count — which is exactly why dependable wells and pumps matter so much out here.
the spring pool*
the Balmorhea project
of Pecos
