Luna Farming Legacy: A Porción of Edinburg

Descendants of Spanish Colonial settlers have been practicing subsistence farming along the Rio Grande for over 250 years. As that same river became the international boundary between the US and Mexico in 1848, landownership and the landscape began to change. As issues in Mexico such as the Mexican Revolution pushed families over the river into the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, many folks established themselves as farmers alongside the new arrivals from the American Midwest in the early 1900s. The guarantee of successful year-round farming was a prominent theme and the Lunas were willing and able to embark on that challenge. As their life in the US began with some time in Los Ebanos, the family eventually found themselves purchasing land and farming in Edinburg. Today Luna family members are still farming in a section of northwest Edinburg fondly referred to as Lunaville by fellow farmers.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapspublications/1000/thumbnail.jp

And Then The Soldiers Were Gone: Fort Ringgold and Rio Grande City

And Then The Soldiers Were Gone” is about the military base at Fort Ringgold that was established before the Civil War to protect the people of South Texas. It served as a military base for many years, until the 1940s, when the fort closed and the soldiers left Rio Grande City. The question that circulated within the city was what to do with the vacant base. Friction arose between those who wanted it to be a tuberculosis hospital and others who wanted it to be used as a center for education. Eventually, in 1949, the Rio Grande City Consolidated School District bought Fort Ringgold and it served as a school for decades for all students to attend. However, the divide between the people of Rio Grande City lingered. Then, in 2010, a project to research Fort Ringgold was created under then University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools (CHAPS). And in 2016, the idea for the documentary was born. It has earned spots in several film festivals and won awards such as The Award of Excellence in Research from the WRPN Short, Tight and Loose film Global Film Festival in 2018 and was a finalist: Best Domestic Feature, Documentary in the Fort Worth Indie Film Festival in 2018 and finalist: Best in Show, Documentary in the 2018 CARE Awards.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapsrecordings/1002/thumbnail.jp

The Legacy of the Underground Railroad in Texas - The Webber and Jackson Families of Hidalgo County

While most of the pathways of the Underground Railroad to lead north into Canada, there was also movement along pathways through Texas and into Mexico. Lured by the fact that slavery was abolished in Mexico, enslaved peoples were able to achieve freedom by traversing Texas, slipping over the Rio Grande, and settling in colonies throughout northern Mexico. As Mexico had abolished slavery, the path to freedom for many African Americans was through Texas. With the re-enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act, the Dred Scott Decision, and anti-miscegenation laws, families of mixed races felt the crescendo of animosity and hate throughout the southern states. This film tells the unique story of two bi-racial families, the Webbers and the Jacksons, who migrated to the newly established natural and international border and established their identity through immediate assimilation into Tejano culture. The unique characters within these mixed race families sought a new beginning as frontier pioneers along the natural border known as the Rio Grande. Both families were led by white men, John Webber and Nathaniel Jackson, and their strong, determined, and brave African American wives, Silvia Hector Webber and Matilda Hicks Jackson respectively. The willingness of these families to help those in need speaks largely to the current regional cultural legacy of helping others. These families displayed a strong commitment to underserved populations because they were welcoming and willing to assist others. Their participation in what we refer to as Underground Railroad-like activity is what puts these families on the national and international map. Today\u27s descendants of the Jackson and Webber families have been instrumental to this research. We would like to thank each and every one of them who have assisted in this process along the way.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapsrecordings/1003/thumbnail.jp

Cotton Times: The Rio Grande Valley Civil War Trail

The Rio Grande Valley of Texas played an important role in global economic trade during the US Civil War. Once the Rio Grande became the natural and international border between the US and Mexico at the end of the Mexican American War in 1848, it became an international waterway and therefore neutral territory during the US Civil War in 1861 – 1865. When President Lincoln put his blockade on the Confederacy, the only way Texans and people from states such as Louisiana and Arkansas could get their cotton to market was to take their cotton across the Rio Grande into Mexico and take their bales of cotton down the river either by steamboat or by wagon to Bagdad at the mouth of the river where ships from all over the world were waited to purchase this cotton. Citizens of the region viewed these times as “Los Algodones” or “Cotton Times.” Not only did this trade allowed the Confederacy to continue funding its operations but several regional merchants were able to get rich from this trade.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapsrecordings/1001/thumbnail.jp

A Letter From Roma: African American Soldiers on the Rio Grande 1864-1867

During the US Civil War, US Colored Troop regiments were stationed along the international border between the United States and Mexico. Arriving toward the end of the conflict along the Rio Grande in 1864, US Colored Troops not only played a part in the last land battle of the US Civil War at Palmito Ranch outside of Brownsville, Texas on May 12-13, 1865, but their regiments remained in the region once the war was over during ‘Reconstruction’ with the specific purpose of rebuilding or reconstructing the US Military forts along the river such as Fort Brown in Brownsville, Ringgold Barracks in Rio Grande City/Roma and Fort McIntosh in Laredo to name a few. A letter from Roma, Texas, written by Sgt. Major Thomas Boswell from the 116th US Colored Infantry was sent to tell his family in Kentucky and described what life was like for them in the village of Roma. The troops of the US Colored Infantry fought the closing battles of the Civil War along the Texas Mexico border and later protected that boundary line against lawlessness. Some of these soldiers remained in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and married into the local culture. The presence of the US Colored Infantry helped build and define our South Texas spirit.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapsrecordings/1000/thumbnail.jp

Just a Ferry Ride to Freedom

This film showcases stories about the Texas-Mexico border and its connection to the Underground Railroad. Rooted in pre-Civil War Texas along the Rio Grande between the emerging cities of Laredo and Brownsville, this film highlights mixed-race ranches in Hidalgo County and illustrates how culturally diverse the Rio Grande Valley really is. Lifeways developed during that time still influence life along the border and across the US today. Featured in the film are community leaders, ranchers, scholars, and historians who find out how a just a ferry ride across the border to freedom altered the course of US history.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapsrecordings/1004/thumbnail.jp

The Eubanks Family: a porción of Edinburg

Almost forty years ago, Kenneth and Irene Eubanks came to Edinburg to settle in what would be their final resting place after decades of traveling the world. After a successful professional career as an agricultural economist, a professor and a high-level official for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Kenneth Eubanks found the perfect location to literally plant roots with his family in a place referred to as the Magic Valley of Texas. The research conducted for this book represents historical, archaeological, geological and biological data that will forever be preserved within this volume collection of human-land interactions at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Border Studies Archive\u27s Spanish Land Grant Collection.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapspublications/1002/thumbnail.jp

Bair Farms: a porción of Edinburg

Among the early arrivals to the town of Edinburg was the Bair family of College Springs, Iowa. In 1920 they joined others, including the Heacocks who had arrived in 1913 and made the Rio Grande Valley their home. The families who were bonded together in the marriage of Dorothy Heacock and Lee Martin Bair were entrepreneurs in retail hardware and agriculture. They experienced droughts, hurricanes, and freezes with their attendant economic shortcomings which changed and often shortened lives. Their son Dwayne Bair would lead a life that included farming, citrus production, and banking. This is his story but also one of many others that called the Rio Grande Valley home.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapspublications/1004/thumbnail.jp

Fike Family Farm: A Porción of Edinburg

Farming is at the very soul of the United States. From the shores of the Atlantic to the prairies of the Midwest and the Great Plains the image of the yeoman farmer permeates American history. In the greater Southwest those English-speaking farmers would encounter their Spanish-speaking counterparts in the 1850s. Those civilian vecinos had, served as the vanguard of the Spanish empire establishing towns, farms, and ranches in what would become California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. It was in this milieu that the Rio Grande region was settled in the 1750s. A century and a half later, following the construction of railroads and irrigation systems the descendent of those first settlers were joined by new farmers speaking a polyglot of languages. Here at the beginning of the 20th century the Magic Valley was born. The guarantee of successful year-round farming enticed farming families to abandon their farms in temperate states and flock via train to the international border between the United States and Mexico. The Fikes of Ohio, and the Rorks of Nebraska were two such families who sought to make good on that promise. From them the union of Willard Fike and Anna Rork created over four generations a strong, sustainable, award-winning farming family. Farming involves long days, often pre-dawn until well after sundown. It is not glamorous. It is risky and unpredictable. These challenges are compounded by evolving regulations and geopolitics regarding tariffs and trade imbalances which can thwart even the most carefully planned plantings and harvests. It is no wonder that American family-owned farms are dwindling. Yet, the Fike Family is prospering as it begins its fourth generation of farming. In 2017 students in the seventh-annual study of an Edinburg-based farming family discovered a resiliency among the Fikes that is largely unknown in the 21st century.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapspublications/1001/thumbnail.jp

Roegiers Family Farm: a porción of Edinburg

Today the citizenry of Edinburg lives in a bi-lingual, bi-national, and bi-cultural environment of Spanish- and English-speaking peoples. Were we to travel back eighty years to the 1930s and visit the ice houses, packing sheds, cotton gins, and streets of Edinburg it would not be unusual to hear people being greeted in a cacophony of languages- “Good Day,” “Buenos días (Spanish),” “Dzień dobry (Polish),” “Guten Tag (German),“ “God dag (Swedish),” and “Goede dag (Flemish).” Through the social process known as “chain migration” friends and family will learn of opportunities and then follow previous migrants to the new community. In this study we learn of Camiel Roegiers, a Flemish-speaking Belgium national who, as a “bird of passage,” makes three trips to the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century to work and live in Texas, Virginia, Kansas, and ultimately Edinburg, Texas. Along the way he was joined by his siblings, and in-laws.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapspublications/1006/thumbnail.jp