A Visit to Brownsville Over the New Railroad

Country Undergoing a Wonderful Change

[The following article appeared under the headline above in the Corpus Christi Caller1 on May 20, 1904. A copy was supplied for the CCHC Web and Announcement by Rita Krausse.. Some endnotes have been added and are referenced in the article. The superscripts are links; click on them to go to the referenced note. A map, left, has been added with some of the stations mentioned. Click on map to enlarge.]

The editor of the Caller made a quick trip to Brownsville last Monday2, leaving Corpus Christi on the Special for Jeff Miller3 and party at 7:30 A.M., via Robstown,4 to the end of the track of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico (13 miles from Brownsville), taking a private conveyance there at 6 P.M. and arriving at Brownsville at 9 o'clock that evening.5

At Kingsville6, one of the most important stations on the road, we found considerable stir -- quite a number of people were out to meet the train, among them Mr. R.J. Kleberg7 (who accompanied the railway officials to the end of the track), Mr. C. Kleberg8, Hon. John Willacy9, Justice O.S. Watson, Mr. Sims, Mr. Peter Watson, candidate for Postmaster, Mr. Shaw of Hubbard & Shaw, contractors.

After viewing the fine artesian well there and the progress being made on the handsome (brick) passenger depot and brick round house, the walls of which are up, the special sped on its way. We passed Richard10, Sarita11, Mifflin and Katherine12 stations. All have fine flowing wells and handsome, well-built depots, with the exception of Mifflin. The depot there is in course of construction, Sarita being opposite the Kenedy Ranch headquarters. The country from Kingsville to Rudolph13, about 57 miles south of Kingsville, is mostly sandy, level prairie, not much timber, a veritable artesian-well belt. The well at Rudolph was a "crackerjack" well like that at Sarita.

A few miles beyond Rudolph, the road enters mesquite timber country which becomes very brushy further on ‘til the road gets within ten miles of the Rio Grande or Brownsville. At Harlingen, forty miles south of Rudolph, grading has been started towards Hidalgo. At the camp of the track-layers, a city of tents, the writer met Messrs. S.A. Robertson14, C.F. Hiers, G.K. Larrison and others. They were found rushing the business near Brownsville. Irrigation from the Rio Grande seems to be the popular thing. Large ditches carry water to the rice fields which cover acre after acre of rich land in that section of the country. The rice looks green and beautiful on land that a few years ago was mostly covered with brush.

Arriving in Brownsville, we put up at the Miller Hotel, a three-story brick, kept by Messrs. Prior & Barbee. It is a good place and you should stop there when you go to Brownsville. We met the mayor of the town there, Judge Bartlett, well known in Corpus Christi. Nearly opposite, across the street, is the office of the Daily Herald15, one of the newest afternoon papers in Southwest Texas. Jesse Wheeler is an energetic newspaper man and has ordered plenty of new material for his office. Mr. C. W. Lunsford is assisting Editor Wheeler with his paper and they are doing good work for the Rio Grande. The writer and Mr. E.C. Forto16, president of the Brownsville Board of Trade, took the Caller man to the Board of Trade rooms, where the secretary was found. Mr. Henry A. Maltby, one of the pioneers of this country, at one time engaged in the newspaper business at Corpus Christi and for years engaged in it in Brownsville, was met by the writer. Mr. Maltby holds his age well17. Lon C. Hill, Esq.18 was found in Brownsville doing well, "Struck it right," everybody says.

The writer saw there, among others, Mr. Frank Rabb, who was in his buggy going out to his ranch; Mr. Frank Armstrong19, who was busy getting off a shipment of birds and animals to the World's Fair20, the Crixells, Jap Skeen, Louis Laulom and others, formerly of Corpus.

Brownsville has a bright future now with the railroads heading that way. Hon. Jas. B. Wells21, wife and son, who were on the special train, came in from the end of the track of the St. L., B. & M. Monday night. On account of the rain Tuesday morning, the railroad officials that were expected changed their minds and returned to come back later.

All along the line of the St. L., B. & M. railway from Robstown to Brownsville, there is great activity, improvements being the order of the day - mechanics building section houses, depots, stock pens, etc., forces of men fencing the track, others putting up telegraph poles, etc. Construction trains are going and coming, and soon the route will be open for passengers and freight when there will be something doing. sure enough. The country never was in finer shape with plenty of grass and water, fat stock, flowing wells, etc., and now that the country is to be developed by the man with the plow, the lower country will be strictly in it for business and progress. (Return to Home Page)

Notes

1. The Corpus Christi Caller started in 1883. It has undergone several mergers and has been the Corpus Christi Caller-Times since the merger that occurred in 1929. In 1999 its daily circulation was reported as 66,000. Its Web at carries Murphy Givens’s history-rich Radio Column. (Return)

2. The article’s date was Friday, May 20, 1904, so the "Visit" would have occurred on May 16, 1904. (Return)

3. We have not been able to get a line on who Jeff Miller was. (Return)

4. Here the Texas Mexican line branched to Laredo and a viable town quickly appeared. Robstown was incorporated in 1912 and is a thriving community of some 13,000 population. (Return)

5. So, this implies a train-time trip of some ten hours with numerous stops. Probably the best pre-railroad, Corpus-to-Brownsville time was in a 19th century all-terrain vehicle–a mustang-drawn stagecoach. The time reported aboard this bone-jarring conveyance was 84 hours for the same trip. (Return)

6. The Kingsville Centennial Web at www.cityof kingsville.com/centennial/centennial.asp states "Kingsville, Texas, located 155 miles southeast of San Antonio, 41 miles southwest of Corpus Christi, and 86 miles north of Harlingen, will celebrate its centennial birthday on July 4, 2004." (Return)

7. Robert J. Kleberg was a member of the first board of directors of St. L. B. M. Railway. A grandson of the founder of the King Ranch, Kleberg became manager of the ranch himself in 1932. (Return)

8. Caesar Kleberg, (1873-1946). Robert J.’s nephew and chief assistant at the King Ranch. (Return)

9.John G. Willacy (1859-1943). Texas legislator (1892-1914), he introduced the bill that formed the county that bears his name. (Return)

10 This depot was established on the earlier siding at the request of Robert Kleberg, Sr. Later the name was changed to the Spanish form, Ricardo. (Return)

11. Sarita survives as the county seat of Kenedy County. The townsite was moved a mile east in 1905 when a stretch of the railroad was relaid. At that time Sarita was in Cameron County but found itself in Willacy in 1911. (The county moved, not Sarita.) Still later, 1921, it was named the county seat of the newly formed Kenedy County. (Return)

12  Located at the ranch taken over (from his father-in-law, Major James B. Durst) by Texas Ranger, James B. Armstrong in 1893. The first post office was named Katherine but was changed to Armstrong in 1915. Armstrongs still run the ranch and constitute a share of the community's twenty-some inhabitants. (Return)

13. Named for Rudolph Kleberg (1847-1924), the rather minuscule town is still served by the railroad and by U.S. Highway 77. Rudolph Kleberg was a soldier, teacher, lawyer, newspaperman and state senator. (Return)

14. Samuel Arthur Robertson (1867-1938) was a railroad developer, engineer and army officer. Later, in 1916, he was a scout for Gen. John J. Pershing. During this service on an excursion into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa, Robertson was captured, dragged behind a horse, beaten and left for dead. He recovered to serve during WWI. Robertson settled in San Benito and in 1922 became sheriff of Cameron County. (Return)

15. The "Brownsville" article by Aliza Garza and Christopher Long in the Handbook of Texas on Line states, "In 1892 the Cosmopolitan, a local newspaper, was purchase by Jesse O. Wheeler, who renamed it the Brownsville Herald." (This Wheeler, however, is not the one described elsewhere in the Handbook.)  (Return)

16. Reference is probably to Emilio Forto, a banker and politician in Brownsville and environs. Forto served as Cameron County sheriff, Mayor of Brownsville, and sat for some 16 years on the Brownsville schoolboard. His brother Frederick Forto served as Cameron County Commissioner in the late 1800s. (Return)

17. Even so, Henry Alonzo Maltby died two years later. (Return)

18. Leonidas (Lon) Carrington Hill, Sr. (1862-1935)–land developer, real estate entrepreneur, store owner and border scout–Hill is considered the founder of Harlingen. One of his companies also founded Lonsboro which became Mercedes. (Return)

19. Frank B. Armstrong (1863-1915) was an ornithologist and taxidemist. Born in Canada, Armstrong had his home and studio in Brownsville, raised his family there and is buried in the Old City Cemetery. (Return)

20. This would have been the 1904 World’s Fair, The Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. A blurb of the time reads, "The World’s Fair of 1904 celebrates the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase, an event in American history having an importance secondary only to the Declaration of Independence." There are some great 1904 World's Fair pictures at    http://www.crawforddirect.com/worldfairtour.htm (Return)

21. James Babbage Wells, Jr. (1850-1923) was briefly a judge in Brownsville and a well–known, rather controversial, Democratic boss of South Texas. Wells was active in the early campaigns of John Nance Garner. A Texas county bears his name. (Return)