Soy de Duval

Calixto Tovar, Félix B. Del Barrio, and others called a meeting to discuss the practicality of establishing a college in San Diego. Some 60 Duval students were attending school out of the area. Fourteen were enrolled at the State College of Mines in Rolla, Missouri alone.  The Rolla Building. Duval County residents sent out $10,000 in one day to pay for their childrens’ schooling. Duval residents believed they could organize a college, hire teachers from Rolla and keep money at home. They would recruit students from surrounding towns as well as from the Rió Grande Valley and México.  Within a day they raised $8,000, with San Diego contributing $5,000. The group’s goal was to raise $15,000 in order to build a brick structure by September. **** In other news, Deputy Paulino Coy was quickly getting a reputation as a ruthless lawmen. In late 1883 he killed Ezequiel De Los Santos supposedly while the suspect tried to escape. In January 1884 he killed Cristóbal Salinas at a rancho n...

The first settlers to the area of what is now Duval County came to ranch. The land did not lend itself to farming, as the aborigines had found. It did provide, however, enough forage for animals to survive. Therefore, the Spanish came into the area with their cattle, goats and sheep to make a living.  Some historians date the first Spanish ranches in the area to as early as 1760. Guerrero, Camargo and Mier were said to be the well spring for the first frontier communities, including San Diego. In 1794, Julian and Ventura Flores first received eight leagues of land called San Diego de Arriba and San Diego de Abajo from the king of Spain. It would take another 10 years before its owners had the land officially surveyed and their titles perfected. While Julian and Ventura Flores’ Rancho San Diego was among the first settlements, it cannot be definitively said that it was the first. Spaniards surveyed several other grants at about the same time, including Los Angeles, Concepcion, San...

The common perception is that the San Diego de Abajo and San Diego de Arriba grants are the grants in which San Diego is situated. This is only partially true. These grants cover the part of San Diego north of the San Diego Creek. The area south of the creek is part of the San Leandro grant. Early Spanish language documents suggest that a fourth grant, San Florentina, was involved but the Texas General Land office has no record of this grant. A legal document used to establish rights to the San Leandro grant contains a notation in Spanish indicating that each of these grants contained four leagues of land. Their owners were Jose Antonio de la Pena y Lopes, Julian and Ventura Flores and Juan Sanchez Rosales who lived near Mier. All were heirs of Don Antonio Perez. The four grants combined, verified on May 30, 1810, contained 16 leagues. Rosales testified that during the Spanish reign of the area he had settled and cultivated his four leagues of San Leandro on the shores of the San Die...