Quemado, Texas

Quemado is on U.S. Highway 277 1½ miles east of the Rio Grande and eighteen miles northwest of Eagle Pass in the Quemado Valley region of northwestern Maverick County. The Quemado Valley, for which the community is named, was designated the "burned valley" by Spanish explorers who believed the area had been parched by volcanic eruption. The initial Mass on Texas soil is believed to have taken place in the valley during the Bosque-Larios expedition in 1675. The Wipff family, Mike and his nephews Joseph and Theo, established a cattle ranch in the region around 1871. The first farmers to settle the Quemado Valley were escaping drought in the Texas Panhandle sometime in the late 1800s. P. D. Anderson was the first landowner in the valley to subdivide his property and offer farm tracts to new settlers. Hans Lahrman, an apiarist, began a trade that became an important industry in the region in the early 1900s. In 1897 thirty students attended the one-teacher Quemado school. In 1914 Joseph Wipff was a cattle breeder in the community. By 1915 Quemado had an estimated population of 100. In 1932 the Maverick County Irrigation Canal provided irrigation water; an initial problem with flooding was alleviated by the late 1930s. In 1936 Quemado had five grocery stores, three filling stations, a post office, a tourist camp, a community canning plant, a tile plant, a vegetable-loading platform, and a school. A post office was established in the community in 1934. In 1940 livestock raising, dairying, and irrigated truck farming were the chief sources of income. By 1946 Quemado had an estimated population of 314, three churches, and three businesses. The estimated population was 950 in 1956 and remained at that level throughout the early 1960s, perhaps because the irrigation system made farmers less vulnerable to the widespread drought afflicting Texas. By 1968 the population had dropped to an estimated 426. In the late 1970s Quemado had six churches, a school, four businesses, and a scattering of dwellings. In 1981 the Quemado Valley elementary school changed its name to Maude Mae Kirchner Elementary School in honor of a beloved educator who had taught countless Quemado Valley students over more than four decades. In 1990 the population was 426. The population dropped to 243 in 2000.

Normandy is on U.S. Highway 277 one mile east of the Rio Grande and three miles southeast of Quemado in northwestern Maverick County. Around 1878 the Lehmann Ranch, described as a small settlement composed chiefly of resident Mexican ranch employees, was established at the site. A post office by the name of Upson was established there in 1879 with Frank R. Lehmann as postmaster. During the remainder of the nineteenth century the small community had a couple of stores and a one-teacher school, which in 1897 had thirty-eight students. The Upson post office was discontinued in March 1901 and was replaced by the Quemado post office in 1903. Louisa Lehmann was postmistress. The community was also known as Lehmann's Ranch at that time and had an estimated 200 residents. In 1915 Lehmann Ranch was a military headquarters for United States soldiers during the Mexican Revolution . The Quemado post office was discontinued in 1918. In 1937 another local post office opened as Normandy with Edna W. Brewer as postmistress. By 1939 Normandy had three businesses and an estimated population of sixty. The population remained stable until 1956, when an estimated population of 250 was reported. In 1964 the population was 260. Since Normandy was in the Maverick County canal system, the increase in population was due to increased profitability of agricultural production. By 1968 the population had dropped to an estimated 138, and by 1974 only ninety-eight people and one business were reported. In 1990 and again in 2000 Normandy still had an estimated population of ninety-eight.

A landmark of the Texas-Mexico border area. Built 1884-85, during term of county Judge Thomas Lamb, on site chosen by citizens' committee, who donated $800 toward purchase of land from R.E. Moffit. Architects: Wahrenberger and Beckman, San Antonio. Contractor: A local builder, William Hausser (1847-1919). Courthouse and a jail were erected at total cost of $20,489. This was site of celebrated Dick Duncan murder trial, 1889. Duncan, accused of killing four members of a San Saba family he was escorting to Mexico, was convicted on evidence gathered by Sheriff W.N. Cooke and Texas Rangers Ira Aten and John R. Hughes. He was sentenced to death by district Judge Winchester Kelso. Duncan appealed to state and federal courts and gained national notoriety, but was hanged in the county jail on September 18, 1891, in the only capital execution ever carried out by Maverick county. Early jail was replaced in 1949. A fine example of Victorian design, with crenelation that suggests a fortress, the courthouse is a border structure with great architectural significance. The clock tower still holds its original E. Howard works and bell. Marker dedicated in September 1971 to commemorate centennial of the organization of Maverick county. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1971

The last flag to fly over an organized Confederate force was buried in the river near this spot on July 4, 1865, by Gen. Jos. O. Shelby, of Missouri. His un-surrendered cavalry brigade, with arms, cannon and ragged battle flags, marched across Texas three months after Lee's surrender, to enter Mexico in the hope to continue their fight. As a last rite on Texas soil, Shelby assembled his command on the banks of the Rio Grande. At sound of drum and bugle, their flag was folded, weighted and consigned to the waters of the muddy Rio. (1964)

A major terminus of the Cotton Road, customhouse and Confederate port of entry into Mexico 1863-65 when Union forces held lower Rio Grande. Cotton was "lifeblood of the South," Texas its lifeline and storehouse west of the Mississippi. Confederate, state and private agents sent thousands of bales through here to be traded for needed guns, ammunition, clothing, blankets, leather goods and medical supplies. One Arkansas train contained more than 100 wagons loaded with cotton. Arriving from San Antonio over a hot, dusty road threatened by Indians and plagued by bandits, the cotton bales were removed from oxcarts and ferried across the river on barges. It was then sent down the River Road to Matamoros or carried inland sometimes as far as Mexico City. Confederate customs took one-half of all private cotton passing through as export duty, and at one time bales spread from the river bank to the edge of town. Fort Duncan and Camp Rabb, Confederate garrisons, afforded protection for the wagon trains and controlled Eagle Pass which had voted 80 to 3 against state secession. Union sympathizers, renegades and sulkers wanting to avoid the conflict of war fled across the Rio Grande attempting to settle in Mexico. Many slipped back into Texas to prey on wagon trains and isolated ranches. One large party of raiders overcome Fort Duncan and went to attack Eagle Pass. Alerted citizens fighting from behind barricades of cotton bales caused them to flee. Erected by the State of Texas 1963. Erected by the State of Texas 1963.

Jane Cazneau [pseuds.: Montgomery, Cora Montgomery, Corrine Montgomery], journalist, author, promoter, and unofficial diplomat, daughter of William Telemachus and Catharina (Coons) McManus, was born in or near Troy, New York, on April 6, 1807. Her father served in the United States Congress from 1825 to 1827. She had three brothers, including Robert O. W. She was apparently raised Lutheran but seems to have become Catholic as a young woman. She married William F. (or Allen B.) Storms in 1825 and had a son but was divorced in 1831. Three years later she was named as Aaron Burr 's mistress in a divorce suit brought against the former United States vice president. Jane McManus Storms (she used both surnames at different times after her divorce) first became active in Texas in 1832, when, to offset declining family fortunes, she investigated opportunities both to resettle her parents and to contract to bring immigrants to Stephen F. Austin 's colonies, in what was then the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas . With her brother Robert she traveled to Texas on the first of nine trips that she made there between 1832 and 1849. She applied to Austin for a headright and a league of coastal land in 1834 and 1835, respectively. An acquaintance recollected that the Mexican government granted her eleven leagues of land for her project but that she lacked the financial means to move her settlers, a group of Germans, from the Texas coast to the designated colony. According to this account, the enterprise broke up at Matagorda, where Jane resided for several months. She may not have lived on her land long enough to get final title and may have forfeited her claim. In a letter posted from New York in 1835, she alluded to owning 1,000 acres in Austin's colony, over and above a league she claimed as a settler. She speculated actively in Texas land from 1834 to 1851. Meanwhile, apparently in 1833, her brother Robert and her parents moved to Matagorda, Texas, although her father returned north before his death in 1835. Land interests and the presence of family gave Jane McManus a vested interest in the future of Texas. When the Texas Revolution erupted, she announced an intent to contribute money and arms to the cause of Texas independence. In the mid-1840s her columns in the New York Sun helped swing United States public opinion in favor of the annexation of the Republic of Texas . She contributed "The Presidents of Texas" to the March 1845 issue of the Democratic Review . That same year her Texas and Her Presidents, With a Glance at Her Climate and Agricultural Capabilities was published in New York. In December 1849 she married Texas entrepreneur and politician William Leslie Cazneau . From 1850 to 1852 she and her new husband lived at Eagle Pass, where he founded a town, opened a trade depot, and investigated mining opportunities. Jane recounted her experiences there in Eagle Pass; or Life on the Border (1852). In this book, in letters to United States Senator William H. Seward, and in columns for the New York Tribune , she charged that Mexicans had been kidnapping Texas residents into peonage in Mexico. Her complaints induced the United States Department of State to broach the issue with the government of Mexico. Eagle Pass also inspired Frederick Law Olmsted to investigate the matter. Olmsted reported in A Journey Through Texas that he found no evidence to corroborate Mrs. Cazneau's accusations. Throughout the antebellum period, she maintained close ties to Mirabeau B. Lamar , second president of the Republic of Texas. Lamar dedicated a volume of poetry to her ( Verse Memorials , 1857). Her will, drafted in 1877, lists 1,000 acres at Eagle Pass and other Texas properties among her assets. Jane Cazneau participated in United States diplomacy almost a century before the first woman was appointed to the United States Foreign Service. During the Mexican War she played an important, if unofficial, part in the unsuccessful secret peace mission of