Lower Rio Grande Valley Curated Material

A curated collection of publications and promotional materials highlighting the history and heritage of the lower Rio Grande Valley and borderlands region of deep south Texas and northeastern Mexico.

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Studies in Brownsville & Matamoros history

Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, and Antonio Zavaleta

Jose de Escandon and the settlement of South Texas in the late Colonial Era, 1746-1821 / Harriet Denise Joseph -- La poesia de arte menor en la Cronica de Sanchez Garcia / Jorge Green Huie -- The Battle of Palo Alto: a preliminary gathering of primary sources arranged by selected holdings / Thomas B. and Marie J. Carroll -- Francisco Yturria / Lilia Garcia -- The start of Brownsville-Matamoros telephone link / Bruce Aiken -- La presidencia de Don Salvador Cardenas: Enero-Junio de 1920 / Andres F. Cuellar -- Doctor, maestro, periodista, literato Manuel Feliciano Rodriguez Brayda / Elia Garcia Cruz and Jose Luis Lopez -- Algunas mujeres destacadas de Matamoros / Rosaura Davila de Cuellar -- Margaret M. Clark, pioneer in Brownsville physical education: an oral history / Judith D. Walton -- Mexican American empowerment and local organization: the case of Valley interfaith / Jose R. Hinojosa, Norman E. Binder, J. L. Polinard and Robert D. Wrinkle -- The economic impact of the Port of Brownsville / Randall Florey -- Historic architecture in Brownsville and Matamoros / Mark Lund -- Architecture in Brownsville: the 19th Century / Stephen Fox -- A history of literature in Brownsville / Charles F. Dameron, Jr. -- Instituto Regional de Bellas Artes / Norma Garcia Lerma -- Sociedad Tamaulipeca de historia, geografia y estadistica de Matamoros / Amparo Olivares de Huerta and Javier Huerta Castaneda -- The reaper / Peter Gawenda -- The chaperon / Peter Gawenda -- Historia del Instituto Tecnologico de Matamoros / Raul Salinas Gonzalez and Carmen Mijares Fong -- A historical sketch of the Baptist church in Brownsville and Matamoros / Milo Kearney and John Kearney -- The libraries of Brownsville: a historical survey / Daniel L. Nutter -- Estudio en geneologia de Familia Salinas / Yolanda Gonzalez Zuniga -- Familia Pacheco / Maria Luisa Rojas de Pacheco -- Filomeno Garcia vs. Josiah Turner: the case of Soliseñito Banco and the elimination of bancos on the Rio Grande River / Antonio N. Zavaleta -- Teatro de la Reforma / Alfonso Gomez Arguelles.
Studies in Matamoros and Cameron County history

Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, and Antonio Zavaleta

The Pineda plaque / Don Clifford -- El romanticismo Hispanoamericano también floreció aqui / Jorge Green Huie -- La batalla de la Resaca de la Palma / Carlos Rosas -- Los Matamorenses fundan el casino / Andres Cuellar -- The shifting relationship between Harlingen and San Benito in the first three decades of the Twentieth century / Milo Kearney -- Reading Zane Grey in Brownsville / Mimosa Stephenson -- After the boss: Twentieth century political trends of Brownsville city government / Anthony K. Knopp -- Ethnicity and political participation in Cameron and Hidalgo counties: Mexican American voters and nonvoters / J. L. Polinard, Robert D. Winkle, and Norman E. Binder -- Poem: “Karankawas” / Marty Lewis -- E. J. Davis: traitor or idealist? / Sondra Shands with Sherry McCullough -- El General Manuel Gonzalez Flores / Clemente Rendon de la Garza -- Colonel Sam A. Robertson and his house / Henry E. Agar and Margaret E. Brown -- Biografia del General de Division Lauro Villar Ochoa / Gustavo Flores Sanchez -- Don Luis Emigdio Rendon Arias / Elia Garcia Cruz -- Ladislao Cardenas / Maria Luisa Meade -- Don Florentino Cuellar Martinez / Alma Rodriguez -- Jose Rangel Cantu: the conscience of South Texas / Carlos Larralde -- Gene McNair / Nat Flores -- Jim Mills: from West Texas famer to South Texas mayor / James W. Mills, Brent H. Mills, Susan E. Mills -- Frank Yturria: profile of a citizen / Eliana Guerrero Ramos Bennett -- Poem: “Valle Hermoso” / Manuel F. Rodriguez Brayda -- De cronistas e historiadores: apuntes para una historia conjunta / Cirila Quintero Ramirez -- Matamoros, cartago de America / Oscar Rivera Saldana -- Historia de la Sautena / Jose M. Karlis -- Colonia Diez y Ocho de Marzo / Nora E. Rios McMillan -- A selected history of fine arts in Brownsville / Nancy Escobedo Churchill -- Hispanic journalism in Brownsville, Texas / Cipriano Cardenas -- The history of the Maquiladora industry in Matamoros / Kathleen E. Owen -- An initial overview of Matamoros’ Nineteenth-Century street names / Thomas B. Carroll -- La ciudad de Matamoros en el Siglo XIX / Jaime Mendoza Martinez -- Instituto literario de San Juan / Jaime Mendoza Martinez -- Architecture in Brownsville: the 20th century / Stephen Fox -- Historic folk sainthood along the Texas-Mexico Border / Joseph Spielberg and Antonio Zavaleta -- Poem: “Playa de Matamoros” / Manuel F. Rodriguez Brayda.
Studies in Rio Grande Valley history

Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, and Antonio Zavaleta

Historia de Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas / por Ernesto Escribano Gómez -- How the teachers of Matamoros formed la Union Tamaulipeca / by Alma Ortiz -- The 1971 "Pharr Riot" / by Ned Wallace -- Memoirs of Brownsville politics / by Loddell Batsell -- Economic changes in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas: a bibliographic review / by David J. Mycue -- A short history of land titles in South Texas / by Joseph E. Chance -- The prehistoric peoples of the Rio Grande Delta and their connections with the cultures of Mesoamerica / by Rolando L. Garza -- Peyote: sacred sacrament of the Rio Grande Valley / by Thomas Britten -- Twin cities on a river: a reminiscence and comparison / by Anthony Knopp -- The signs of Brownsville / by Mimosa Stephenson -- Charrería en Matamoros / por Oralia Garcia -- German immigrants in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, 1850-1920: a demographic overview / by Gerhard Grytz -- A history of the Muslim community in the Rio Grande Valley / by Milo Kearney and Mark Hanson -- From old to new: the alteration, restoration, and preservation of historical Fort Brown buildings of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College / by Javier R. García -- Brownsville and "The Herald" in the 1940s / by Cipriano A. Cárdenas -- Brownsville's Casa Petrina / by Milo Kearney -- Recent Valley literature: the South Texas Mexican set / by René Saldaña, Jr. -- Israel B. Bigelow: from Connecticut to the Rio Grande / by Bill Young -- Menton Murray Sr. and Betty Murray of Harlingen: a legacy of public service / by John Hawthorne -- Mayor and commissioner Henry Gonzalez / by James W. Mills -- Porfirio Díaz in the Lower Rio Grande Valley during the rebellion of Tuxtepec / by John D. Kearney -- Coronel Eleuterio Reyna García: vida de un revolucionario Matamorense / por Miguel Rubiano -- Stephen Powers: master Mason, master citizen / by Douglas Collins -- The Chiltons: eighty years in the Valley / by Carl Chilton, Jr. -- From the inside out: truancy to prison on the streets of Brownsville / by Joe Garcia -- Colored death: the tragedy of black troops on the Lower Rio Grande 1864-1906 / by Antonio N. Zavaleta -- Dr. William C. Gorgas and yellow fever at Fort Brown / by Charles M. Robinson III -- José M. Lopez: un hombre valiente / by Manuel Medrano -- The clay dunes of eastern Cameron County / by Norman L. Richard.
Sugar in Rio Grande Valley : the sugar bowl of America

C.H. Swallow & Co.

Promotional brochure for investing in sugar plantations in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
Supplementary studies in Rio Grande Valley history

Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, Antonio Zavaleta, and Thomas Daniel Knight

Corrupted, a poem / Tom Emrick -- Primal Matamoros : ancient refuge among the Estuaries of the Rio Bravo / Craig H. Roell -- U.S.-Mexico relations during the establishment of the American Consulate in Matamoros : 1826-1842 / Melisa C. Galvan -- Captain King’s Cotton : the Civil War blockade-running adventures of Richard King and Mifflin Kenedy / Walter E. Wilson -- The sad saga of John V. Singer / Norman Rozeff -- Ulster and the Texas-Mexico Border : John McAllen and his family / Thomas Daniel Knight -- Joseph Kleiber and his letter press book / Anthony K. Knopp and Alma Ortiz Knopp -- Jose Agustin Quintero y Woodville : Confederate Special Agent / Jim Mills -- The Putegnat Family and J. P. Putegnat’s escape from a Yankee prison / Tara Putegnat -- Putting the pieces together : the rhetoric of oral tradition in the Twentieth-Century Rio Grande Valley / Monica Reyes and Andy Najera -- President Emeritus Miguel A. Nevarez and the transformation of South Texas / Rolando Avila -- The history of Baseball in Brownsville / Manuel Gutierrez -- Reynosa’s Iglesia Evangélica Esmirna and Pentecolism in Latin American / J. Steven Rice -- Spanish-speaking institutions and language assimilation in the Rio Grande Valley / Alexandre Couture Gagnon and Carlos Daniel Gutierrez Mannix -- English/Spanish flip/flop greetings in South Texas / Scott J. Bird -- Crimen organizado y migración clandestina en Tamaulipas / Oscar Misael Hernandez-Hernandez -- The drug cartel and drug-related violence in Matamoros / Daniel Perales -- An assessment and an explanation of the recent violence in Tamaulipas, Mexico / Arturo Zarate Ruiz -- The Border Wall, a poem / Tom Emrick.
The beautiful valley of the lower Rio Grande

Missouri Pacific Railroad Company

Hand-colored promotional "booklet produced by the Gulf Coast Lines, a part of the Missouri Pacific System, has for its purpose an effort to acquaint those who have never seen the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Figuratively, this booklet will take the visitor on a trip through the Valley between dawn and sunset, with fleeting glimpses at all sections of the Valley."
The centennial celebration of the organization of Hidalgo County in Texas, December 7-13, 1952 Official Program

Hidalgo County Centennial Corp. and Times Pub. Co.

Black and white booklet promoting the centennial of Hidalgo County.
The Ghosts of Mier: Violence in a Mexican Frontier Community during the Nineteenth Century

Jamie Starling

On April 23, 1852, Ramona de la Peña became a widow for the second time when she buried Eusebio García at the Inmaculada Concepción Parish of Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas. The priest who conducted the burial, Father José Luis Gonzaga García, had ministered to her family over the previous thirteen years and baptized five of the couple’s children. He christened their youngest, Gregorio, about a year earlier. On the day of the burial, the priest wrote a sacramental record that described Eusebio García’s death “in the hands of the Americans” (en manos de los americanos). He was one of eight Mexicans who died in a conflict that swept across adjacent areas of Texas in the early months of 1852 and among the over two hundred killings recorded in Mier between the Mexican War of Independence (1810–1821) and the French Intervention (1862–1867).

Mier and its neighboring towns date to the foundation of the Nuevo Santander colony under José de Escandón from 1749 to 1767. Over the following century, other frontiers overlapped with that of Spanish- Mexican colonists in the region. Plains Indians such as the Comanche, Lipan Apache, and Kiowa raided Mier’s surrounding ranches, especially after Mexican independence in 1821. At the same time, Anglo settlers and African American slaves reached Texas, and by the 1840s, American expansionists set their sights on Mier and its surroundings. The lower Rio Grande became a multifaceted contact zone that simultaneously witnessed lucrative trade, cultural exchange, intermarriage, and harrowing acts of brutality. The records of the Immaculate Conception Parish of Mier contain many accounts that attest to the contact and conflict that marked this frontier.
The Grapefruit Special vol.1 no.3

Julia Cameron Montgomery

A short booklet dedicated to the Golden Grapefruit of the Rio Grande Valley. The booklet describes how the Valley is a great place for agriculture. It also addresses other areas such as fishing and hunting, and women's activities.
The Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas

Missouri Pacific Railroad Company

This booklet contains advertisement for the Rio Grande Valley that highlights the various commercial, agricultural, and recreational prospects available. It chronicles the impact of the railroad's arrival and how it stimulated progress in areas such as irrigation, fishing, hunting, beaches, lodging, cities, residences, farming, and crops like cotton. Additionally, it touches on the importance of religion and high-quality education, and the expansion of the railroad network to enhance accessibility.
The Lure of the Rio Grande

Brownsville Chamber of Commerce

An early (ca1930) silent film production heralding the attractions of life in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. This production served the purpose of attracting potential investors and boosting the local economy in Brownsville, Texas and the Lower Rio Grande Valley. "Foreword: Like Ponce de Leon and La Sale of old, like Jason and the Golden Fleece - ,mankind still takes the trail to find the Rainbow's End and the land of the ideal. (...) now, thousands of winter-weary northerners and Chicagoans in particular, are (...) to the new mecca of the southland, the extreme southern tip of the United States where Uncle Sam meets Mexico - the Valley of the Rio Grande. "
“The Most Turbulent and Most Traumatic Years in Recent Mexican-American History”: Police Violence and the Civil Rights Struggle in 1970s Texas

Brent M. S. Campney

This study builds upon a flurry of scholarship focused on racist (primarily mob) violence against Mexican Americans—indeed, persons of Mexican descent broadly—in the American Southwest since 1848. Some scholars have examined the history of mob violence, particularly lynching, against persons of Mexican descent from 1848 to 1928 in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. Although these southwestern states [End Page 34] had their share of such violence, historians William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb concluded that Texas was singular: Anglo Texans “were almost universally regarded as possessing the greatest animosity toward Mexicans.” Others have focused on mob and police violence. They have addressed in detail the massacre of ethnic Mexicans in the lower Rio Grande Valley in 1915 by mobs and Texas Rangers. In chronicling this massacre, they have provided an important service: identifying the centrality of police violence in Mexican American history. Until this essay, however, scholars have not addressed comprehensively racist violence or local police violence against Mexican Americans in the Southwest generally or in Texas particularly in the period since the Great Depression.
The treasure land of the lower Rio Grande

Baker Bros. Engravers

Black and white promotional booklet describing the Lower Rio Grande Valley. It covers everything that the Lower Rio Grande Valley has to offer, and how it was growing in all sectors.
Treasures of the Rio Grande delta

John Bax and Gorgas Science Foundation, Inc.

John Bax provides cinematography for an exhaustive study of the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Long known as the River of Destiny, the Rio Grande has been the focus of both conflict and peace between Mexico and the United States. Although rich in history, the river’s delta also supports a rich legacy of natural history. Twisting and turning from the Chihuahuan Woodlands to the Gulf of Mexico, the last 250 miles of this great river form a rich delta, a transition zone between the semiarid tropics and the temperate north. Since 1900, most of the delta’s native vegetation has been lost, but many small islands of endangered habitat survive at the edge of farms and cities. These islands harbor an incredible number of endangered or threatened species. Some are known only from the delta or reach their northern limits here.
Yearbook of the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Northern Mexico, 1961

Mabel Collier Eppright and Gladys Collier Hooper

A Welcome from the Governor of Texas / Price Daniel -- "The Valley-A Metropolitan Area," / Jack H. Drake -- Highlights of 1960-Facts, Figures and Events -- Letters to the Editors -- Did You Know? Unusual Facts in the Valley -- "Agriculture," / Stanley B. Crockett -- "Marrs Early Orange," / Mabel C. Eppright -- Agriculture-Citrus, Vegetables, Cotton -- Let's Go to Mexico -- Fascinating Phases of Valley Life -- "Valley Variety," / Bill Watts -- "Cotton," / W. R. Cowley -- "Cotton's Problems in a Changing Agricultural Economy," / R. D. Lewis.
Yet more studies in Rio Grande Valley history

Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, Antonio Zavaleta, and Thomas Daniel Knight

Frontera, a poem / Elvira Ardalani -- Strasbourg, Alsace, and Brownsville, Texas : ideal sister cities / Milo Kearney -- La concepción de la identidad fronteriza en Jovita Gonzalez y Adela Sloss de Vento / Laura Garza -- Cuando se fundo Matamoros? / Andres F. Cuellar -- The formation and early development of the Llano Grande / Maria Vallejo -- Doño Rosa Maria Hinojosa de Balli and her family : a lower Rio Grande Valley family in an Atlantic perspective / Thomas Daniel Knight -- Clarksville : a forgotten community on the Rio Grande / Jim Mills -- The last battle of the Civil War / Norman Rozeff -- The Spanish Influenza epidemic in Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico / Jorge Hernandez -- El Puerto de Brownsville newspaper: the voice of the Mexican-American Community / Cipriano Cardenas -- McAllen’s key contribution to the U.S. Cuban history / Oscar Sordo -- La amenaza de la Encefalitis y una visita presidencia a Matamoros en 1971 / Rosaura Alicia Davila -- Oscar Casares, frontera writer : a little more hope, a little less fear / Manuel Medrano -- Immigrant child, a poem / James Brandenburg -- Undocumented immigrants narratives : a view from the banks of the Lower Rio Grande / John A. Cook -- The tragedy of unaccompanied child immigrants to the U.S.-Mexico border 2014 / Antonio Noe Zavaleta Reid and Mitchell A. Kaplan -- Young, wild, and free : narratives de jóvenes migrantes Mexicanos detenidos en el Valle de Texas / Oscar Misael Hernandez-Hernandez -- The recent violence in Matamoros : are we living next to a war zone? / Anonymous -- The humorous side of Brownsville Police work / Ruben Garcia and Anthony Knopp -- Bilingual college education at UTB : improvement student success in the Rio Grande Valley / Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera and Oralia de los Reyes -- The deaf community of Brownsville : site of controversy over language and identity / Mimosa Stephenson -- Antepasados, a poem / Janie Alonso.