Soy de Duval

“[Settlers] have been extending themselves with ranches and haciendas, not only in the immediacy of said settlements but also in almost all the other shore of the Rio Grande del Norte and even further, nearly up to the Nueces River, about 20 leagues before the Presidio de la Bahía del Espirito Santo whose land is good for pastures and planting; notwithstanding that I understand the inspectors set it down as useless and sterile, an error that I attribute to their quickly believing someone who, without their having been in the region, gave them a report because they did not see it.” José de Escandón In 1746, the Spanish government decided that it was time to begin colonizing the area known as the Seno Mexicano, including South Texas. The presence of the French in the area around Goliad and in East Texas prompted Spain to begin colonizing the area. The Spanish commissioned Don Jose de Escandon to establish the Provincia Nuevo Santander in Northern Mexico and along the Rio Grande River.

More than 200 headstones were overturned at the San Diego Cemetery. Many statues were broken. Photo by KIII TV 3 News In an unbelievable act of vandalism, more than 200 gravestones were toppled over or broken at the San Diego Cemetery during the night between Saturday and Sunday, April 20-21. According the the latest news accounts, San Diego police have no idea who may have perpetrated this crime and are asking residents to come forward and file complaints if damage was done to a loved one’s headstone. One individual from Corpus Christi that went to San Diego to check on his family’s graves said that the damage was extensive and it appeared that the vandals had focused on graves along cemetery streets and on larger gravestones. You can see an initial reports from KII TV 3 News and the Alice-Echo-News-Journal , as well as some photographs in the following links. KIII 3 News Alice  Echo News Journal Alfredo E. Cardenas | April 23, 2013 at 5:39 pm | Reply (Edit) Thank you for the commen

For nearly 200 years after De Vaca’s travels, no recorded forays into the area exist. It was not until the mid 1700s that Spain began to send scouting parties into South Texas; first to track down rumors of French incursions, and later to prevent future foreign intervention in the depopulated area. Of course, the area was not really without people, a number of native groups collectively called Coahuiltecs lived in and roamed throughout South Texas. The Coahiltecans lived in groups of from 100 to 140 and these groups together formed larger bands held together by common language and the proximity to each other. Some anthropologists believe that they were a loose confederation of families without a leader or chief. There is some evidence, however, that at least the Carrizo had a form of tribal government with clan leaders reporting to the band’s chief. The Carrizo was probably the largest group of Coahiltecans. It consisted of some 50 clans that primarily lived along the Rio Grande

Discovery of bones in Duval County mostly are from the Pleistocene age, a more recent geologic time going back 10,000 to 1.8 million years. While officials of the United States National Museum could not identify large fragments of bone found 2.5 miles north of Concepcion in gravel and sand deposits on the Agua Poquita Creek , they determined that the bones were likely from the Pleistocene age. Bone fragments from the time were also found on Agua Poquita where it intersects the Benavides-Concepcion Road, on the Concepcion Creek near Concepcion, and on a number of other creeks in the county. A. L. Labbe found a 3-foot tusk in a well on the Labbe ranch along the banks of the San Diego Creek. Other Pleistocene era fossils were found on the San Diego Creek, 1.5 miles east of San Diego. It was at the close of the Ice Age that humans might have made their first appearance in Duval County. Anthropologist Thomas R. Hester observed in his book Digging Into South Texas Prehistory , “There

“There are several localities in south Texas with evidence of habitation attributed to a time prior to 11,000 years ago…there were claims some decades ago for the association of artifacts and mid-Ice Age fossils in the so-called ‘equus beds’ of Duval County…” Thomas R. Hester The history of Duval County should logically start with its creation. If that were so then the history of Duval County would start in 1858 when the Texas Legislature carved it out of Nueces, Live Oak, and Starr counties. However, history is not always orderly, nor does it lend itself to dreary logic. History by its very definition is the story of people and one cannot dryly tell the history of a great people; it begs for life and demands a colorful showing of all its ramifications. Before there were a people, however, there was a place and a time. The time of this place called Duval County goes back 24 to 34 million years to the Oligocene period when the Earth was still undergoing major geologic