Valley History by Norman Rozeff (and a few others)

(Norman also has a page of articles on "Harlingen History" which can be opened by Clicking and also another page listing the "Chronological History of Harlingen" which can be opened by Clicking.)

Click on a title to jump to a particular essay 

First Year Index of Valley Morning Star "Our Heritage" Page
Second Year Index of Valley Morning Star "Our Heritage" Page
Third Year Index, Valley Morning Star "Our Heritage" Page
Fourth Year Index, Valley Morning Star, "Our Heritage" Page
Fifth Year Index, Valley Morning Star, "Our Heritage" Page
Sixth Year Indec, Valley Morning Star, "Our Heritage" Page
The Earliest Area Inhabitants
20th Century Brought Renewed Life to the Old Miller Hotel
A Little Railroad and How It Grew
Before Fame Came, They Worked in the Valley
Brownsville Rainfall Statistics
Clouds over Brownsville and Major Blocksom's Investigation of the "Brownsville Raid"
Cameron County History Online
Invited To Be Dinner; It Ate Our Lunch
It Shaped the Valley
Niche Industry was in Mercedes
Our Language Embraces the Southwest
Significant Women in the History of South Texas
Some Firsthand History of the Spiderweb Railroad
The Gravity Canal Movement
The Insistence of Memory—Pancho Villa and Matamoros
The Stage Line and the Paso Real
When St. Louis Bankrolled the Valley
Weslaco Glowed Brightly in a Gloomy Period
Ed Couch, Prominent Valley Developer
Robert Runyon: A Man for All Seasons
Primera, Texas Celebrates 50 Years as a Town
Carl Lee Tanberg to the students of the Wilson School, Primera
Vela, Filemon Bartome (1935-2004)
Garza, Reynaldo Guerra (1915-2004)
The Labor Day Hurricane of 1933
Ghostly Trains Through the Valley
Colonel Heywood Promoted the San Benito Area
Medal of Honor Recipient Billy Harrell of Mercedes
Vignettes of Rio Hondo History
Hometown Hispanic Icons
The Big Bell of Santa Rosa
Information on Al Escalante, Brownsville Golf Pro
The LRGV Hurricane of 1933
Cotton History Highlights
Valley Baseball in the Late 1930s
The Story of Cameron County Courthouses
The Cortez Hotel, Weslaco—The Beginning
Forto Family Extracts
Two Great Freezes of the 20th Century
Américo Paredes, The Valley's Renaissance Man
Three Valley Engineers
Hispanics Take Action at 1927 Harlingen Convention
Origins of the Military Highway
The General Brant Highway
The Short Line Railroad of the Valley
The Valley in Dispute
Beginnings of U. S. Navy Radio Communications
Near Norias, A Case of Ranger Justice?
Ranches of Significance in Cameron County
Railroad Service to the Rio Grande
Dr. Héctor Pérez García, Hometown Hero of Mercedes, Texas
Forty-niners in the Valley
Who Was Clay Davis?
Hicks-Gregg House
ESTÉFANA GOSEASCOCHEA CEMETERY
The Story of Union Forces in South Texas During the Civil War
Brownsville's Forgotten Namesake
Civilizing the Frontier—The Porters
Dr. Héctor Pérez García, Hometown Hero of Mercedes, Texas
The McNair House of Brownsville
Hicks/Lawrence House of Brownsville
Citrus History Excerpts
The Man Who Brought the Valley into the 20^th Century—Uriah Lott
John W. Gardner, Harlingen's Forgotten Photographer
Last Piece of Railroad Puzzle Falls into Place
Getsemani Presbyterian Church of San Benito,
First Methodist Church of San Benito History
A Jewish Immigrant and Spanish Proverbs of South Texas
The Armendaiz Ranch of Willacy and Cameron Counties
Historic River Flooding in the Valley
History of Lights of the Valley, as published by the U.S. Coast Guard
Arroyo Colorado History
Ship and Drill Rig Building at Port Brownsville, Texas
A Link to the Past—Historian Harbert Davenport
A Zoo Farce in Two Acts
When the Union Helped Mexico Independence
Santa Rosa Celebrates 80 Years as a Town and City
Valley Bragging Rights for Record Texas Trees
Rio Hondo and Its Once Wild Side

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2003-4 First Year Index of Valley Morning Star "Our Heritage" Page

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2005-06 Third Year Index, Valley Morning Star "Our Heritage" Page

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2006-2007 Fourth Year Index, Valley Morning Star Our Heritage Page

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2007-2008 Fifth Year Index,
Valley Morning Star Our Heritage Page

* The VMS moved the Rio Living Feature from Thursdays to Sundays in order to effect a greater readership.

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2008-2009 Sixth Year Index, Valley Morning Star Our Heritage Page

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The Earliest Area Inhabitants
Norman Rozeff

In my history articles I have usually dealt with subjects occurring over the last 150 years. A recent web discovery now allows me to tell you about considerably older Valley natives.

Not much has been published on the very earliest Native Americans in this region, but as early as 1917 artifacts were coming to light which stirred periodic interest. Still the amount of archeological literature on the subject is relatively little. Andrew Eliot Anderson was one of the first to explore local sites, make notes, and collect artifacts. He first published some of his results in 1932, and his collection is presently housed at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory.

Archeologists have termed the little-known Indian groups who occupied the Rio Grande Delta during the period 1100-1700 A.D. the Brownsville-Barril complex or culture. With its semi-arid climate and variable soils the area was generally inhospitable for cultivation so "The people of the Rio Grande Delta were hunters, fishers, shellfish collectors, and plant gatherers who moved frequently as the seasons, tides, and food supplies dictated." Unfortunately evidence of even earlier occupation is scant since river flood deposits and hurricanes have covered or destroyed sites which were on the higher dunes and levees along the coast, resacas, and the river.

The Rio Grande Delta was largely neglected by the Spanish settlers until 1747, years after they had established missions and settlements upriver. By their accounts it was suggested that as many as 50 named Indian groups may have populated the area. These include the Atastagonie (probably the same as the Taztasagonie), Cacalote, Garza, Pacuache (also given name variants such as Campacua, Paachiqui, Pacao, and Patzau), Pajarito (also called the Pacaruja), Pinanaca (Pimanco, Pinaca, Piranca), Tecahuiste, and Tepachuache. These peoples were all part of the Coahuitecan language group of Northeastern Mexico, and this language group may have encompassed up to 200 tribes.

The notorious Karankawa, who constituted a separate language group, did not inhabit the Valley area. In the mid 1840s, remnants of the Karankawa tribe moved from the Corpus Christi area into Tamaulipas, Mexico. Besieged by Mexico authorities after being accused of plundering Reynosa, they moved into Texas in 1850 and settled near Rio Grande City. In 1858 a Texas force led by Juan Nepomuceno Cortina annihilated the small remaining band of Karankawas.

Lacking natural stone, the delta natives used seashells to fashion tools, ornaments, and projectile points. A few objects of pottery, jade, and obsidian found here indicate that the Valleyites likely traded some of their shell creations for these items produced to the south.

Also mentioned is the distinctive manner of human burials, especially the tightly flexed position of the body, that is with the forearms crossed or the hands adjacent to the face, their locations away from living areas, and the accompanying offerings. A link to the Handbook of Texas Online tells in greater detail about the Ayala Site discovered in 1948. Located south of McAllen on the Ayala Farm this site on a bluff of the Sardinas Resaca contained forty-four identifiable remains from the Brownsville complex period.

With the more extensive colonization commencing in the first decade of the 20th century, canal building, land leveling, and the eventual control of the river itself, major archeological sites were lost forever.

Readers may learn more about the Brownsville-Barril complex by going to www.texasbeyondhistory.net. This website is a joint effort of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, the University of Texas (Austin), and other Texas archeological organizations. Available at this site is a map of Texas showing thirty-five archeological sites. By clicking on any one of them, the viewer is offered a "virtual museum" tour. Under the Brownsville-Barril tour are to be found colored photos of shell tools, ornaments, and more. The next nearest site is Falcon Reservoir and presented under it is the "Ghosts of Spanish Ranchos", a subject of interest to many Valley residents. Covered in some detail is the Leal Rancho. This was once located in the 5,783.6 acre grant in Porcion 55 west of Mier given to Juan Antonio Leal.

The website as a whole is a wonderful way to be an armchair explorer and save gas at the same time.

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 20th Century Brought Renewed Life to the Old Miller Hotel
Norman Rozeff
January 22, 2004

It was in the summer of 1866 that Uriah Lott glimpsed an ad in the New Orleans Picayune. The ad noted that King, Kenedy, and Company were agents at Brazos de Santiago, Texas of the Morgan Line of Steamships. The latter were the U.S. Mail Steamships serving the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The adventurous twenty-four year old Lott soon set sail for Brownsville and eventually a railroad career that would make him a legend in Texas. Uriah Lott, of course, was later to be instrumental in bringing the first railroad to the Valley and then extending it to the west. Disembarking, he journeyed up river to Brownsville on the steamship Bessie. In Brownsville he put up at the Miller Hotel.

He found a job as a ship agent and also as correspondent for the Rio Grande Courier, which billed itself as the official journal of the Brownsville country. While moving on to Corpus Christi, his 84 hour stage coach trip gave him an indication of the terrain lying between the two cities.

Henry Miller, a German sea captain, had come to Brownsville in 1850 and in about 1858 had erected a wooden structure, naming it after himself. In another account by Mrs. Harbart Davenport, wife of the Port Isabel historian, she says the hotel had its start in 1848 due to both Henry Miller and John Webb. John Webb was a coachman involved with the founding of Brownsville, a vocal opponent of the Stillwell townsite company, and a member of the Blue Party. It was made over from time to time, but it was in 1863 that Miller added a three story brick addition to the rear of his premise at 1301 E. Elizabeth Street at the corner of 12th.

Business languished and the hotel closed. Minnie Gilbert says in an old VMS article that the hotel was closed for 21 years before Lon C. Hill resurrected it to accommodate prospective land buyers and business men after 1901. On a return trip from carrying hill's rice crop to Houston, hill brought in new furniture for the hotel. The Brownsville Herald of 9/16/03 reported that Frank M. Prior, proprietor of the hotel, had sold one-half interest in it to J.M. Anderson of San Antonio. When it reopened and with thanks to the coming of the railroad in July 1904, the hotel prospered. It was managed by Frankie Prior of San Antonio and W. L. Barbee, formerly of Wharton. Guests could for $2.00 per day on the American Plan receive lodging plus meals. Barbee was the owner of one of the two flourishing livery stables in Brownsville, the other being the Brownsville Transfer Company. Both also operated a feed and sales stable in connection with their livery business.

On July 8, 1904 Lott and his associates and the business leaders of Brownsville celebrated the coming of the railroad with an elaborate banquet at the Miller Hotel. In less than five months, the aggressive Benjamin F. Yoakum had ousted Lott from the presidency of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway Company.

The Miller Hotel in the first decades of the 20th Century was THE place for visitors to stay. Hill and his sometime partner, the entrepreneur Peter Ebenezer Blalack, would sometimes book blocks of rooms at the hotel in order to accommodate potential land buyers and investors. If you look closely at the photograph of the hotel you will note that the man in the doorway is holding two tall stalks of sugarcane. Obviously, he is working to promote the idea at the time that the Valley was to be "The Sugar Bowl of the United States." George Brulay had set the example with his successful sugarcane plantation and mill at Southmost.

Lew Wallace, by the way, was the author in 1880 of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. He saw service briefly in the Valley during the Mexican War. After recruiting and organizing Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry, he entered the army as a second lieutenant on 6/18/46 and was mustered out 6/14/47. He served again in the Civil War and rose in rank to general. From February to April 1865 he was detached on a secret service assignment connected with the liberal government of Mexico. It is highly unlikely that he wrote Ben-Hur, the best-selling novel of the 19th Century outsold only by the Bible, while in the Valley.

There is a small town named Ben Hur located eight miles northwest of Groesbeck in western Limestone County, Texas. According to local legend, A.T. Derden, an admirer of Lew Wallace's book, pushed the townfolk to change the name from Cottonwood to Ben Hur. The town had a peak population of 200 in 1947 but had lost its post office by 1906.

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A Little Railroad and How It Grew
Norman Rozeff, Harlingen Historical Preservation Society
May 2004

The San Benito and Rio Grande Valley Railway, or as it was affectionately called the "Spider Web" or "Sam Robertson's Back Door Railroad", was the product of San Benito and Houston principals. They realized that the irrigated lands served by the San Benito Land and Water Company as well as other canal companies, could not be sold unless the purchasers, who would mainly be growers, had some means of getting their produce to market. Adding impetus to this need was the high capacity sugar mill to be constructed in San Benito. Sugarcane would be impossible to transport over long distances on the then existing fair-weather-only unpaved roads.

What most people remember as the Spider Web was hardly the modest railroad that first started. With the purpose of constructing and operating rail lines in Cameron and Hidalgo counties, it was initially chartered as the San Benito and Rio Grande Valley Interurban Railway on June 28, 1912. In August of that year its name was changed to the San Benito and Rio Grande Valley Railway Company. With its principal place of business in San Benito, it had a capital of $500,000. At that time its first board of directors were: Samuel A. Robertson, Samuel Spears, W.G. B. Morrison, and L.O. Bryan, all of San Benito, and Abraham M. Levy, John W. Link, Jonas S. Rice, R.H. Kelley, and DeWitt C. Dunn, all of Houston. To finance the project Robertson had asked the Water Company to give him a lien of $10/acre on unsold land within a mile of the proposed railroad tracks and $5/acre for that within two miles.

The fact was that the railroad had been initiated in 1910 in the name of trustee Robertson, acting for the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad Co. (Frisco), which advanced funds for the construction. Benjamin Yoakum was the president of the Frisco at this time and had his hand in many early Valley endeavors. Robertson went to Palestine, TX to purchase the necessary steel, ties and, as he related, "junk locomotives and cars" from George M. Dilley and Sons. By November 1910 Robertson had already laid three miles of track north from San Benito and on 6/7/11 it reached Riohondo. [Note: The original spelling of the name was Riohondo.  In a letter, dated 7/20/25, to the town's postmaster, First Assistant Postmaster General John H. Bartlett requested that the town's spelling be changed to Rio Hondo to be effective August 15, 1925.] When the charter was issued in June 1912, thirty-nine miles of both completed and in-progress trackage was deeded by Robertson to the Interurban. A few days later it signed a contract with the Frisco to complete the railroad. The Frisco became the controlling interest.

By the end of 1912 there were thirty miles of serviceable track from San Fernando (about three miles north of Rio Hondo) and where the present-day Fernando East Road commences its eastward run and Santa Maria. Later an additional six miles were laid between Fernando and La Leona. Along the initial route, communities starting from Fernando, where the Sugarland Subdivision there supplied cane for the San Benito Sugar and Manufacturing Company mill and its successor, the Borderland Sugar Company, were in order: Rio Hondo, Rancho Colorado, Fresnel (El Fresnos), Lantana, Elrain, Nopalton (later Place Junction), San Benito where it connected to the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway, Boulevard Junction, Highland School, Heywood, La Paloma Junction, Landrum Station, Carricitos (Alcala), Los Indios, Rangerville, and Santa Maria. At La Paloma Junction a one mile spur ran southeast to La Paloma. At Los Indios another one mile spur ran south to Head Gates between the pumping plants for the Harlingen and San Benito canals.

Later a loop starting at Boulevard Junction, about two miles south of San Benito, was started in April 1910 and completed in June 1912. It ran two miles northeast from the junction before turning southwest passing Nebraska and Ohio Stations on it way to Los Indios. Nebraska Station was along today's Oyama Road and Ohio Station to its south was just north of where the Bill and Randy Mc Murray families homestead.

With the benefit of a land bonus, the company, on 11/11 started a totally separated segment. The nearly 20 mile line running from Sammons (near present-day Madero south of Mission) to a point two miles east of Monte Christo was completed 7/13.. It crossed and connected with the Sam Fordyce Branch of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway at Mission. The coming of the railroad to Monte Christo drew settlers to this isolated community founded in 1909 by the Melado Land Company of Houston. Soon it boasted thirty-six farm families, a feed store, post office, service station, hotel, lumberyard, church, and a wholesale/retail store. The town was to fail when its deep water well ran dry and 1915-16 border raids frightened off some residents. Today few traces can be found that it ever existed.

In 1914 S.A. Robertson was listed as president of the company; J.W. Link of Houston, vice president; G.H. Windsor (shown left) of San Benito, secretary, auditor, traffic manager and general superintendent; J.T. Lomax, treasurer; F.H. Hamilton of St. Louis, assistant secretary and assistant treasurer; Andrews, Streetman, burns and Logue of Houston, general counsel; Morrison and Robards of San Benito, general attorneys; and L.H. Thacker, master mechanic.

By October 1914 a company schedule noted the distances between stations.  On the Landrum Branch distances from San Benito were:

Boulevard Junction   1.2 miles
La Paloma                 6.6
Landrum                    8.3
Los Indios Junction     10.3
Headgates                 11.4
Templer                    14.4
Towne                       17.6

The alternate route commencing in Fernando north of Rio Hondo had:

Fernando                  12.2

Rio Hondo                 8.7
Nopalton                    2.9
San Benito                 0.0
Nebraska                    6.8
Ohio                           8.2
Santa Maria              16.3
Kern                         16.8
Progreso                   31.2
Hidalgo                    45.2
Sammons                 58.0
Hoits                        59.7
Mission                    65.7
Alton                        69.1
Monte Christo          77.9

As time passed stations would be added, others dropped.

As innovative and ambitious as Sam Robertson was, he was always strapped for cash for his enterprises. With the Frisco in debt to the Equitable Trust Company of New York, the S.B. & R.G.V. was in receivership. So it was on March 1, 1916 that the San Benito and Rio Grande Railway, the Spider Web, was acquired by the New Orleans, Texas and Mexico, itself emerging from receivership. The latter continued to operate it as a separate company. Robertson remained as president and chief operating officer until he went into the army during the Great War and went to France to work on transportation systems. Mr. George H. Winsor, who had been auditor, secretary, traffic manager, and superintendent, then took over as president and chief operating officer.

In 1916 the line owned two locomotives, seven cars, and operated a bit over seventy-five miles of track. It reported passenger earnings of $6,000 and freight revenues of $20,000.

It was in the mid-20s, after all the sugar mills had closed—the last one being the Donna mill in 1922, that the San Benito and Rio Grande Valley Railway or Spider Web railroad began an expansion that doubled its size. In 1925 its two disjointed sections were united when a thirty-two mile line was laid between Kern just west of Santa Maria and Sammons, just south of Mission. Stops going westward from Kern were Thayer, Progreso, RayPaul (Runn), El Gato, and Hidalgo.

The Spider Web, its parent, the New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railway Company, which took control of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway in the account of the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad Company (Frisco), were all acquired by the Missouri Pacific Railroad on January 1, 1925. The original names were kept in place, and the companies operated as separate entities until March 1, 1956 when they were fully merged into MOPAC. Two employees who retained their seniority when the consolidation occurred were conductor L.H. Thacker with a start date of 7/1/14 and engineer J.H. Sanders, 3/4/10.

In 1928 more trackage was laid, but this same year the connection above Rio Hondo to Fernando and La Leona was discontinued. From just north of San Benito, a nineteen mile line via Laureles and Bayview was put in to reach Abney, a no-longer existing community where the Border Patrol now has its detention facility. In 1940 this line would be extended 3 ½ miles south to Esoes (now HWY 100 south of Laguna Vista) and then east to Port Isabel by a nine mile acquisition of an existing line owned by the Port Isabel and Rio Grande Railway. Another unrelated extension was from La Paloma six miles southeast to Santander, now San Pedro.

With the north end of the Valley about to develop, the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway constructed a line running from Raymondville west through Lasara, Filagonia, Hargill and Faysville to Monte Christo. Later it would tie in San Perlita, Willimar, Porfirio, and Santa Monica to Raymondville's east and southeast. To serve the Delta Lake area track was run from Hargill through Rollo (Monte Alto) to Edcouch and south to Weslaco. A spur from it ran west to Engelman Gardens northwest of Elsa. It was in the early 1940s that the total system reached its maximum trackage of about 138 miles.

With fluctuating traffic and the initiation of better Valley highways, the railroad incrementally abandoned trackage over time. In 1955 the company reported freight revenues of $127, 400 and the operation of 115 miles of main track. In 1957, the line from Faysville to Monte Christo was discontinued; in 1968 the rail line from Edcouch to Monte Alto was dropped; and in 1969 the segment from Alton to Monte Christo was abandoned.

All of the system is now gone. One can see reminders here and there of its existence. These may be the straight elevated beds curiously dissecting cropped fields west of Raymondville, the odd-shaped lots and right-of-way in Monte Alto, and the yet to be paved over former track beds along Sam Houston Street in San Benito. This latter was the first to be constructed and possibly the last to be torn out in the late 1990s.

The Spider Web served the Valley well over many years, but time, progress, and the changing nature of agriculture made it obsolete and uneconomical. We'd like to hear from Valley readers about their memories of the railroad here. Does anyone recall a Galloping Goose type of self-propelled combination passenger/locomotive type car? These combined either gasoline or diesel with an electric motive power. In other parts of the country these self-powered passenger cars were called doodlebugs. One major manufacturer of this type rail car was the J. G. Brill Company of Philadelphia. "The J. G. Brill Company and its various incarnations dominated the world of trolley and undercarriage manufacturing for most of its seventy-year history. Based in Philadelphia, Brill was founded in 1865 by a German immigrant and held in family hands well into the 1930s. At its height the J.G. Brill Company owned plants in six states as well as Canada and France." Other manufacturers of self-propelled railcars at the time were the Edwards Railway Motor Company, Osgood Bradley, Wason Manufacturing, Cooke, and American Car and Foundry (ACF).

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Before Fame Came, They Worked in the Valley
Norman Rozeff
Harlingen Historical Preservation Society
September 2003

The 1930s were a tough period for the country and world. South Texas was no exception. The Federal Government sought to alleviate the poor economic plight of displaced farmers among others. The Resettlement Agency, an arm of the Department of Agriculture, was created in1935. It evolved into the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which was discontinued in 1943.

One outgrowth of the FSA's existence was the establishment of its Historic Division. Its head was Roy Stryker, a Columbia University economics professor and a forceful administrator. He believed, and rightly so, in the "social and political power of photographic documentation." He not only wanted to create a record but also to gain support for New Deal legislation. The division would aid this effort "by documenting the need for agricultural assistance and recording the results of the agency's efforts to address that need."

Stryker hired a small, but effective, number of photographers who would prove to be outstanding in their trade. These included, among others, later renowned Gordon Parks, Ben Shahn, and Carl Mydans. Three other photographers of equal merit worked in the Valley in the years 1938 though 1942. All three went on to achieve worldwide fame and recognition.

While working in the Valley these photographers took hundreds of pictures in Cameron, Hidalgo, and Willacy Counties. There are one hundred available photos of Harlingen alone. These pictures, among 164,000 black and white negatives, 107,000 black and white photographs, and 1,610 color transparencies, now form the "America from the Great Depression to World War II" collection in the Library of Congress. The pictures depict family life, living quarters, labor, recreation activities religious and other organizations, personal portraits and more. The emphasis is on rural and small town life. They portray the adverse effects of the Dust Bowl, Great Depression, the increasing displacement brought about by farm mechanization, and the displaced people migrating west or to industrial sites in search of work. By the 1940s, America's mobilization for WW II is highlighted.

First here was Russell Lee (1903-1986) of Illinois. In the early 30s this graduate chemical engineer had spent summers in Woodstock, New York studying painting. He became interested in photography after purchasing his first camera in 1935 to use as a drawing aid.

Between 1936 and 1942, after being hired by Stryker, he became the FSA's most prolific photographer. "His use of direct flash allowed him to take relatively candid and very detailed interior shots." His photos of white migrant laborers and their families in the Valley are poignant and compelling. His most famous project, put together with his second wife Jean, was about the homesteading community of Pie Town, New Mexico. In WWII he served in the Army Air Corps photographing hundreds of airfields to be used in pilot briefings. For this and other work he received the Air Medal.

Moving to Austin after the war, he worked on many projects both here and abroad. After teaching at the University of Missouri, he later helped to establish the photography program at the University of Texas and taught there.

Arthur Rothstein (1915-1985) was next to work here. This New York native was hired by Stryker while Rothstein was attending Columbia University. He first achieved notoriety for his images of the Dust Bowl. One of his images, that of a skull in the desert, became very controversial. While Franklin Delano Roosevelt was campaigning in the Dakotas, the Fargo Forum embarrassed him by revealing that Rothstein's photo was a set up, in that the skull had been strategically placed in the desert and was not a true documentary photo.

Rothstein was too good a craftsman to let this episode stall his career. He went on to become, in 1940, staff director for Look magazine, later, when it ceased publication, picture editor for Parade, and author of seven books about photojournalism.

One of Rothstein's most reproduced pictures was taken in 1936. Taken in Cimarron, Oklahoma, it is titled "Fleeing a Dust Storm—Man and Two Boys." The original of this very dramatic picture of the three pushing their way to a decrepit, low-lying wooden building more fit for animals is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The last of the three to arrive here was John Vachon (1914-1975) of Michigan. He had been a graduate student of English literature then a filing clerk for the FSA before urging Stryker to allow him to try his hand at photography. After serving in World War II, Vachon joined the Look magazine staff. He later compiled pictures of post-war Poland.

With the passage of time, all three photographers were recipients of numerous honors and awards. They are represented in books of their individual collected works as well as in photography anthologies. Their work is also to be seen in museums worldwide and frequently in traveling exhibitions.

The mostly heart-rending Valley pictures may be viewed at www.loc.gov under the American Memories Collections. That this record of the Valley exists will surprise many and, upon examination, cause the viewer deep reflection about our past.

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Brownsville Rainfall Statistics

It was the military when it occupied Fort Brown that began the organized meteorological record of the region. Complete records extend from 1871 forward.

It was in August 1908 that the first U.S. Weather Bureau station was established in Brownsville likely on the possibility that the Fort Brown installation would be phased out. The observation point was at the nearby South Texas Garden, then under the supervision of Dr. E. C. Green.

Recognizing the fact that long distance weather forecasts emanating from New Orleans weren’t accurate enough for Valley interests, the Brownsville Chamber of Commerce had been lobbying for a separate or a special forecast to be issued for this section. After a year of effort, word came from the National Weather Bureau in January l9l5 that such local forecasts would soon become a reality.

The initiation of special winter truck weather forecasts for the Lower Rio Grande Valley was made known 6/30/21. Heretofore little on this subject important to Valley growers was forthcoming from the New Orleans office from which forecasts emanated.

By 12/8/22 the Brownsville office was connected to a state-of–the–art telegraphic system from which it could access weather information.

Following is the complete Brownsville monthly rainfall total record: