Zapata, Texas

In 1746, Jose de Escandon was selected by Spanish officials to be chief colonizer for the lower Rio Grande Valley, then a part of Mexico's northern frontier. A native of Spain, Escandon (b. 1700) had proven himself a capable administrator and military leader as part of the Spanish forces in Mexico. Escandon took over 700 people, including missionaries, soldiers, and Indians, on his initial exploration of the area. His findings from this venture allowed him to complete his colonization plans. By 1748, thirteen settlements had begun in the area, which came to be called Nuevo Santander after Escandon's home province. A total of nineteen settlements, including Laredo, San Ygnacio, Falcon, and Lopeno, owe their foundings to Escandon. Escandon issued royal land grants in tracts known as "porciones," and in return the settlers were to fulfill certain requirements. The final inspection of the land grants, known as the General Visitation of 1767, marked the beginning of private and individual land ownership in this part of the state, as valid applicants were given possession of their "porciones." The colonization efforts also resulted in the farming and ranching settlements from which grew the immense cattle industry of South Texas. (1986)

Medina is at the intersection of State Highway 16 and Farm Road 337, twelve miles northwest of Bandera in central Bandera County. As early as 1865 a sawmill had been built in the area, and several families were settled nearby. The Medina post office was established in 1880, and by the end of the next decade the community had a gin, a corn mill, a hotel, a private bank, two churches, three general stores, and a population of 150. Many area residents raised stock as their primary occupation. By 1914 Medina had a population of 400; it fell to 250 in the early 1930s, when the Great Depression caused many residents to move away in search of jobs. The community recovered fairly rapidly, however, and had a variety of businesses, four churches, and 475 residents by the late 1940s. Most of the area land was devoted to livestock and to recreational hunting leases until the 1980s, when apple farming was introduced to the area. Baxter Adams, Jr., started an experimental orchard of dwarf apple trees in 1980, and the first apples were ready for sale in 1984. The dwarf trees produced regular-sized apples that were 40 percent sweeter than large-tree varieties and proved to be an extremely efficient use of the land, with 1,000 to 2,500 trees an acre. In 1989 the Texas Department of Agriculture declared Medina the Apple Capital of Texas. The 300,000 trees in the Medina area produced 100 tons of fruit in 1990, and more orchards were being planted each year. The annual Medina Apple Festival, held on the last Saturday of July, attracted 20,000 visitors in 1990. The population of Medina was listed as 515 in 1990, but the actual number of residents in Medina proper was closer to 250. By 2000 the population had more than doubled to 515 residents.

In 1770 residents of Revilla, Mexico, established a village (4.5 mi. W) on land granted by Jose de Escandon. The same year the Spanish built a fort nearby. In 1842 the men on the ill-fated expedition to Mier occupied the village while they foraged for supplies. First named "Habitacion," the town grew to be second largest on the Rio Grande. It was named for friendly Indians living in "carrizo" (cane) huts. In 1858, after Zapata County was created, the name changed to "Bellville" and then back to "Carrizo." In 1898 "Zapata" was chosen for Col. Antonio Zapata, a rancher executed for his part in the 1839 fight to found the Republic of the Rio Grande. Henry Redmond, a well-known area rancher, was the first county judge. Another county judge was Jose Antonio George Navarro, son of Jose Antonio Navarro, one of the two native-born signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. The elimination of duty free trade along the border in 1903 caused an economic decline. With the coming of irrigation, a rich agricultural area developed. After the construction of Falcon Dam and the flooding of Old Zapata by lake water, the county seat was relocated at this site on land originally granted to Bartolome Cuellar and Jacinto de Cuellar. (1979)

Manuel Box Bravo, county judge and civil-rights advocate, the son of David and Emma (Box) Bravo, was born at El Ambrado Ranch in Hidalgo County, Texas, on May 2, 1901. His mother came from the distinguished Box family, pioneers who settled in Houston County during the mid-1830s. Manuel, the oldest of eight children, lived and went to school near his birthplace on the banks of the Rio Grande. Though hard economic conditions forced him to quit school after completing the eighth grade, he graduated from McAllen High School in 1924. On October 24, 1919, he married Josefa Villarreal Pérez in Edinburg; they had three sons and one daughter. He worked in the Hidalgo County courthouse tax collector's office and later earned promotion to chief deputy in the delinquent tax department. In 1921 Bravo, a devout Catholic, became a charter member of the Knights of Columbus , an affiliation he maintained until his death. In the late 1920s he helped establish and served as president of the Edinburg Council of the League of United Latin American Citizens . In 1932 he won the primary election of the Democratic party for district clerk of Hidalgo County. A year later he and his family moved to Zapata, where he engaged in several self-employed business ventures. In the November 3, 1936, general election, Bravo won by an overwhelming majority as a write-in candidate for county judge from the Partido Viejo (as supporters called the Democratic party). On January 1, 1937, he became the new county judge. He ordered county officials to begin the practice of keeping minutes of school board meetings, records of expenditures, inventories of school supplies and equipment, and auditable accounts. Despite the fact that the county was economically very poor and the educational system was in a state of neglect, his fiscal management of the school budget allowed for improvements in school facilities, approved accreditation standards for all grade levels, more certified teachers, and better playground facilities. He purchased school buses and established a veterans vocational training school with classes in vocational agriculture, distributive education, trade and industrial training, and basic preparatory courses. In 1952 Bravo successfully campaigned to get the taxpayers to approve the first bond election in the history of Zapata County. Bravo supported Lyndon B. Johnson 's farm bill of 1949, a bill that provided for telephone service to rural communities. He also solicited government assistance during droughts; in 1952 he lobbied for the establishment of a Soil Conservation Service Office for Zapata County. During the 1940s Bravo became actively involved in civil rights when he joined Alonso S. Perales and José T. Canales in condemning racial discrimination in Texas. On September 13, 1943, the Zapata County Commissioners Court approved a resolution endorsing the Good Neighbor Policy. In 1949, during the Felix Longoria affair , Bravo brought the incident to Johnson's attention. During World War II Bravo was chairman of the War Fund in Zapata County, which exceeded the established goal by 45 percent. For his loyalty, patriotism, and public spirit in a time of national crisis, the American Red Cross and the United States Treasury War Finance Committee honored him with awards. In the 1950s the construction of the International Falcon Reservoir meant the inundation of the entire town of Zapata (the county seat of Zapata County) and other neighboring communities. Bravo fought the government for just compensation for the people. Throughout Johnson's political career Bravo was a personal friend and confidant. He retired from public office on October 1, 1957. In 1973 he served as a member of the local citizens' advisory committee to the Texas Constitutional Revision Committee. He died in Zapata on September 18, 1984, and is buried in the Zapata County Cemetery family plot.

International Falcon Reservoir is located on the Rio Grande east of Zapata (its center point is 26°34' N, 99°10' W). The huge lake is bounded by Starr and Zapata counties, Texas, and the county and city of Nuevo Ciudad Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Mexico. The dam and reservoir provide for water conservation, flood control, hydroelectric energy, and recreation. The project is owned, authorized, and operated by the United States and Mexico through the International Boundary and Water Commission . The project is named for the relocated town of Falcon, which in turn was renamed in 1915 after the wife of founder José Eugenio Ramírez, María Rita de la Garza Falcón. The idea of a dam six miles east of the present site began about 1935, and the lake was approved by treaty at its present location in the late 1940s. Work began in 1951, and deliberate impoundment started on August 25, 1953. The reservoir was dedicated by presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adolfo Ruiz Cortines on October 19, 1953. The five-mile-long rolled earthfill and concrete embankment was completed on April 8, 1954. The first power was generated commercially on October 11, 1954. The dam is 150 feet above the riverbed, with a crest elevation of 323 feet above sea level. Almost two miles of the dam is in the United States, and nearly three miles is in Mexico. The cost of the lake to the United States was $35 million. Flood-control benefits to the United States had totaled $130 million by January 1, 1986. All lands on the United States side, except for Falcon State Park , are privately owned above 307 feet. Boating and fishing are common on the lake. Americans are allowed on both sides without immigration or customs inspection if they do not land in Mexico or take aboard anything from Mexico. Fishing is prohibited below the dam because of sudden water surges based on irrigation needs and controlled by computer from Brownsville. The area of the lake varies from 87,000 acres at elevation 301.2 feet to 115,400 acres at the maximum elevation of 314.2 feet. The reservoir has a summer storage capacity of 2,371,220 acre-feet. Each country has three 14,750-horsepower turbines running three 10,500-kilowatt generators at each plant. Four units are possible if needed. Under terms of the treaty the United States receives 58.6 percent of the conservation storage and Mexico 41.4 percent; financing of the project was based on the same percentages. The drainage area above the dam is 164,482 square miles; 87,760 is in the United States and 76,722 in Mexico. The United States side provides nine public access areas, including the dam itself, along which runs a two-lane highway connecting Farm Road 2098 and Mexican Highway 2.

Established in 1750 as a part of Jose de Escandon's project to settle the region and civilize and Christianize the Indians. Erected by the State of Texas 1936