Der Kurier des Zaren
Marfa was founded in the early 1880s as a railroad water stop. The town was named "Marfa" (Russian for "Martha") at the suggestion of the wife of a railroad executive. Although some historians have hypothesized that the name came from a character in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel "The Brothers Karamazov", Marfa was actually named after Marfa Strogoff, a character in Jules Verne's novel "Michael Strogoff". The town grew quickly during the 1920s.