Bead-Candelaria Clear Glass Teardrop TB

I maintain records on my trackables. For a US-based trackable, this one is unusual for its longevity and movement. In the six-year period, 2010-19, the owner released a total of 3,793 trackables in the United States (96%) and Europe (4%). This trackable is one of the 5% of the total that circulated for at least 5 years and had been moved at least 25 times. That is a target rate of at least five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 31-Jul-24 this trackable had survived for 10.4 years and had been moved by 47 cachers, for an average drop every 81 days, or 4.5 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

This is one of a series of beads obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs. They are named Texas towns with interesting names or histories.

Candelaria is a ranching community at the end of Farm Road 170, across the Rio Grande from San Antonio El Bravo, Chihuahua, Mexico.  It is forty-two miles southwest of Marfa in western Presidio County.  The Candelaria community was originally known as Gallina.  The town lies in an area of rugged mountain terrain in the Chihuahuan Desert, where scrub, sotol, cacti, and sparse grasses grow.  The post office at Candelaria was established in 1901.  By 1910 the town reported a population of 543, a general merchandise store, a church, and a school.  A cotton gin and flour mill were constructed there in 1913, after the introduction of cotton to the area.

The United States Army built a cavalry outpost overlooking Candelaria shortly after the mobilization of National Guard troops along the border in May 1916.  On August 19, 1919, troopers of the Eighth Cavalry crossed into Chihuahua at Candelaria on the last American punitive expedition into Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.  The army outpost was closed after the cavalry withdrew from the upper Big Bend area in September 1919.  Thereafter, the community's population began to decline: it fell to 250 in 1925 and to seventy-five by 1940.  By 1985 Farm Road 170 to Candelaria had been completed, providing the first paved access to the remote community.  In the late 1980s Candelaria comprised a two-room elementary school, a store, a Catholic church, and a cluster of adobe houses. The community had an estimated population of fifty-five in 1990 and in 2000.