San Ygnacio, Texas: en aquel entonces and now

In the early 1950s, the U.S. Sector of the International Boundary and Water Commission identified four historic towns of Zapata County within the boundaries of the planned 85,237-acre Falcon Reservoir. 

The ribireña towns for condemnation by the State Department, demolition by dynamite, and relocation were San Ygnacio, Zapata, Lopeño, and Falcón.

The smaller historically significant villages and ranch sites of Ramireño, Uribeño, San Bartolo Ranch, El Capitaneño Ranch, El Tepozán Ranch, El Clareño Ranch, and El Tigre Ranch — though not officially condemned — were collateral damage in the sweeping obliteration of Spanish Colonial settlements whose enduring quarried sandstone structures spoke volumes of the early history and culture of the region.

San Ygnacio was spared the fate of condemnation and relocation thanks to a group of Zapata and San Ygnacio residents, ranchers, farmers, business owners, and veterans who in the Spring of 1951 organized to form the Executive Committee for the Preservation of San Ygnacio for the specific purpose of exclusion from the IBWC’s land takings for the reservoir. 

The committee’s well-planned approach was to first engage the support of U.S. Senators Tom Connally and Lyndon Johnson and U.S. Representative Lloyd Bentsen. 

Committee members and volunteers collected 200 signatures of San Ygnacio residents over the age of 21 for a petition to the IBWC asking for exclusion from the land takings for the reservoir. An additional copy of the petition would go to the State Department.

In its final version of May 14, 1951, the petition noted:

• that San Ygnacio and its surrounding lands at an elevation of 314.2 feet or more would not be flooded by waters impounded by the reservoir;
• that San Ygnacio and its surrounding lands provided homes and livelihoods to 1,250 residents;
• that the community of San Ygnacio was of greater economic value to the State and the Nation than “if it were ruthlessly destroyed for the purpose of merely including it with the marginal lands around the reservoir to include it in the present program of providing future playgrounds, recreation, etc.; that there would be many thousands of acres of land around the reservoir converted to these purposes without the destruction of this historic town and the disruption of the lives of the members of 300 families which will be tragically affected;”
• that by eliminating San Ygnacio and its lands (50 miles upstream from the dam) from condemnation for its “recreational program area” could save the federal government $5,000,000;
• that San Ygnacio is “a historical landmark and shrine of great sentimental value to hundreds of people of both the American and Mexican side of the Río Grande and should be preserved – and not destroyed;”
• that there is “no technical necessity for the condemnation of San Ygnacio since extreme high-water elevation of the reservoir, under extreme flood conditions, is fluid at 314.2 feet, while the elevation of the center of San Ygnacio is 327 feet and the lowest point of mid-town is well above the 314.2 feet level;”
• that the Falcon Dam’s spillway has the capacity 2.5 times larger “than any flood which has occurred during the period for which the records are available. Thus, the excessive impounding and backing of flood waters is amply provided against;”
• that “the inclusion of these unnecessary lands smack of empire building and is a ruthless invasion of the property rights of these petitioners.”

Newspapers articles of that time evince that the grass roots petition effort served its purpose in securing the support of legislators Connally, Johnson and Bentsen, and shortly thereafter, the acquiescence of the IBWC to exclude San Ygnacio from the takings of lands.

A June 4, 1951 letter from IBWC Commissioner M. L. Lawson to Rep. Lloyd Bentsen defined the victory of San Ygnacio saving itself from the massive bureaucratic effort that in its gargantuan increasingly unconvincing rollout for the “greater good” would downriver foul, truncate, alter the treasured personal histories of many living on ancestral lands and in homes that comprised the largest, most significant inventory of Spanish vernacular architecture and of the mesquite jacales of the first settlers of the region.

“I understand from the petition enclosed with your letter that the residents of San Ygnacio and vicinity are willing to take whatever risk may be involved in the event of a flood or floods of the magnitude mentioned occurring after some years of silt accumulation. Under these circumstances, the decision has been reached not to acquire the Town of San Ygnacio nor the surrounding lands mentioned in the petition. The exact upper line of our taking will be fixed after further engineering investigation,” Lawson concluded.

The executive members of the 1951 committee that spearheaded saving San Ygnacio were rancher, historian, and former Zapata County tax collector Mercurio Martinez Sr., as the committee chair; Zapata utility owner Rafael San Miguel, vice-chair; the owner of the Rex Theater in San Ygnacio and the Rex Theater, Café, Hall, Courts, and bowling alley in Old Zapata, Humberto González, secretary; San Ygnacio rancher and merchant Amador Vela, treasurer; and San Ygnacio ranchers Ernesto M. Uribe, J. M. Sánchez, Trinidad Uribe, and José M. Uribe. 

Other members of the committee were Proceso Martinez, Enrique Gutiérrez, Severiano Rodriguez, Severo Salazar, Carmen S. de Benavides, Toribio Garza, Ramon Escamilla, José A. Paredes, Zaragoza Garza, and María Vidaurri.

Mercurio Martinez Sr. was 75 years old in 1951. His research-based correspondence to legislators and the IBWC and the language of the petition reflected not only his passionate commitment to save the ancestral lands and homes of San Ygnacio, but also his skills as an articulate statesman. 

The news that San Ygnacio had been excluded from condemnation was met with relief, thanksgiving, and prayer. 

At a town meeting in the Rex Theater in San Ygnacio on June 17, 1951, Martinez tendered his resignation from the committee, citing the reasons of “my age and broken health.” He had earlier written to committee secretary González, “Having accomplished the purpose desired to preserve San Ygnacio and its surrounding lands, I hereby tender my resignation as chairman of said Executive Committee, to take effect immediately. My resignation must be considered irrevocable for the reasons above mentioned.”

Martinez thanked González and other members of the committee, volunteers, those who contributed financially to the effort, and the signers of the petition.

The evening at the Rex ended on the high note of Martinez playing the guitar, accompanying his daughter, Rosita C. Martinez, who sang “Ella,” the traditional ranchera vals written by José Alfredo Jimenez.

On June 24, 1951, San Ygnacio celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving in Nuestra Sra. del Refugio Church. The Mass was officiated by Father Eduard Bastien, a French-Canadian Oblate priest, an outspoken, spirited luminary who fought for justice and fair recompense for the displaced people of Zapata County. He wrote editorials under the sobrenombre IPOZ (Irate People of Zapata) and coined the notion that IBWC stood for “I Bully Women and Children.” Father Bastien made many friends in the press and was considered by out-of-town journalists and editors an excellent source of information.

An 1898 graduate of St. Edward’s University, Mercurio Martinez would later co-author with Virgil Lott The Kingdom of Zapata,a history of Zapata County commissioned by the Zapata County Commissioners Court. 

According to the preface of the book, its publication was “decided upon due to the inevitable inundation of a part of the county from the waters of the Falcon Dam which will destroy many of the historic landmarks of the county, including the county seat, Zapata, and other villages, many of which were founded in the early eighteenth century by colonists and their children.”

(At the end of this story you can click on a link to view the roster of members of the Committee for the Preservation of San Ygnacio and the names of the 200 brave San Ygnacio residents who signed the 1951 petition.)

The sparing of San Ygnacio contrasted with the many inequities rooted in the IBWC’s callous indifference to the plight and losses experienced by residents of Old Zapata, Lopeño, and Falcón as the Falcon Dam project came to a completion of many loose ends.

The IBWC was charged with the entire scope of planning the reservoir’s location, condemnation of lands and homes, appraisals, acquisitions, and the relocation of towns. 

Hired appraisers tallied low figures for compensation for the ancestral sandstone block homes in the old towns, arguing that the hundred-year-old structures were obsolete and vastly depreciated.

The shallow pan of the reservoir inundated thousands of acres of productive ranchland and miles of fertile river vega that produced annual tonnages of watermelon, canteloupe, onion, squash, tomatoes, and cotton. Revenue from those crops generated millions of dollars and jobs for many Zapatans. 

The headline for a Dec. 16, 1952 story written by Don Hinga of The Houston Chronicle, spoke the unvarnished truth to power of the true purpose of the dam with “Dam Will End Valley Water Scarcity.”

Many saw the dam as a gate and the reservoir as a holding vessel for water releases for valley growers of sugar cane, produce, and citrus.

Hinga quoted R. B. Ward, a construction engineer for the dam, who said, “This dam is being built for the greater benefit of the many at the expense of the few. It’s hard, I know. It’s the price of progress.”

The greater good was a hard sell to the “few” 4,000 residents of Zapata County. The flip side to the IBWC’s pitch — the generation of hydroelectric power at the dam, water conservation, and flood control — was the loss of ancestral lands and homes, paltry compensation for both, and ranching and farming livelihoods lost to land condemnation.

Those losses changed lives, tore the fabric of community, and decimated farming. The displacement of people and relocation to new townsites changed culture. New Zapata was relocated to a treeless plot of dust and dirt far from the Río Grande.

When Zapatans lost their international bridge, which was built in 1931 as a smaller version of Colorado’s Royal Gorge Bridge, they lost their status as an international port of entry. The short trek on the highway on the Mexican side had been for many years the route to their beloved ancestral Ciudad Guerrero, Tamaulipas.

The IBWC’s delays and broken promises inspired chaos, panic, and insecurity. 

The completion of water and sewage infrastructure lagged behind the relocation of Zapatans to the new townsite. Electrical service was spotty. A new elementary school facility smaller than the one promised had no desks or furnishings. A new high school campus was not completed when promised. 

With the dam gates closed, the IBWC’s misinformation that it would take several years for the reservoir to fill was tragically disproved by the wall of water that took the 450 families of Lopeño and Falcón by surprise in a flood on August 28, 1953. 

Many residents of Lopeño and Falcón left behind the entirety of their homes, photographs, clothing, old documents, farm tools and implements, and their livestock. They would thereafter for several months live in government tents on a windblown expanse of dirt. 

The IBWC did not compensate the vast losses of Lopeño and Falcón. It was the Commission’s plan that the two communities become one with the new Zapata townsite. Both towns, proud of their identities and heritage, eventually re-established themselves individually.

Jean Fish, chair of the Zapata County Historical Commission, wrote in the mid-1950s of the overall impact of the reservoir. “Many trials and tribulations have been suffered and recorded by the people of Zapata County during its 235-year history. But in the worst of times nothing has been as devastating to the community as the building of Falcon Reservoir. This action totally and without any recourse changed the people of Zapata. Their homes, their heritage, and their way of life drowned under the rushing water of the now dammed Río Grande. The river which had been the lifeblood of the area was made into the cruel executioner of the old way of life.”

Zapatan Dr. Cruz C. Torres, scholar, sociologist, and Professor Emerita at Texas A&M University-Bryan, wrote in the Fall 2005 issue of The Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies, “Progress, to the Army Corps of Engineers, meant destruction and loss to the 4,000 residents of Zapata County. To construct Falcon Dam and Reservoir, the government of the United States condemned 90,000 acres of land in Starr and Zapata counties. In doing so, they washed away centuries of heritage and community structures grounded in the land and the river.”

NOW

It’s quiet these days in San Ygnacio. The groans of Kiewit dozers defoliating the sandy riverbank of the trees, shrubs, and grasses that hold the sand to the banks, are silent for the moment. 

If you were nearby when the dozers were clearing en friega you could hear and feel the violent assault of that work — the crack of tree trunks snapping, the shriek of birds circling above their destroyed habitat, and a deep, unsettling sadness for the destruction of the soothing, familiar riparian vista gone, shredded.

It’s so quiet that Elsa Hull hasn’t been arrested for the third time as she makes her way to the Zapata County Bird Sanctuary where Washington Street drops steeply to the river. 

She said Kiewit employees seem to now understand the parameters of the exclusion area IBWC relinquished in acreage, jurisdiction, and oversight to the town of San Ygnacio back in 1951.

The exclusion was formalized in the IBWC’s Declaration of Taking No. 52, filed February 7, 1955 in U.S. District Court in Laredo. 

The exclusion is reiterated on a September 3, 1954 survey map for the IBWC by State Licensed Surveyor Bryan Estes. The map defines San Ygnacio’s exclusion from the IBWC’s Declaration of Taking and establishes a boundary of the Falcon Reservoir near Elevation 307.

A December 20, 2016 map of San Ygnacio created by Howland Engineering and Surveying Company notes: “As per International Boundary and Water Commission Map L—1455— 18, the Town of San Ygnacio was excluded from the ‘taking’ for the Falcon Dam Reservoir area.”

Zapata County Attorney Said Figueroa recently met with representatives of CBP, IBWC, the Army Corps of Engineers, and Zapata County Sheriff’s deputies to ensure they understood that the riverbanks below San Ygnacio are not federal property. He also advised them to respect private property.

The 307’ Traverse was established by the IBWC as the elevation that would be persistently inundated by floodwaters related to the construction of Falcon Dam and Reservoir, 50 miles downriver. The federal government condemned and purchased, land in Starr and Zapata Counties below this elevation – except in San Ygnacio, where the petition led to exclusion from the condemnation process. An easement for access and “flowage” – intermittent flooding – was purchased by the federal government on the parcels between 307’ and 314’ – except within the San Ygnacio exclusion. 

The warp speed of Kiewit’s annihilation of the trees and vegetation of the riverbanks below San Ygnacio begs the question: how did the Kiewit project managers on this stretch of the river not know about IBWC’s 1955 Declaration of Taking No. 52? That they were oblivious to it reveals much about their lack of research and planning to prepare the sandy riverfront for the path of the wall.

“The County’s three roads in San Ygnacio drop down to the river and end at the river banks. They are deeded to us as is the Bird Sanctuary,” Figueroa said.

  “Along some stretches of the Río Grande there is considerable traffic of undocumented immigrants. Zapata County is not one of those areas. The wall is overkill, a monument to xenophobia, racism, and uninformed fearmongers who believe the wall is a matter of national security to protect the United States from armed brown people trying to attack us from the south. The wall is a ridiculous and heavy burden on the taxpayers. It is an eyesore, a 30-foot-tall rusting picket fence that defaces the natural beauty of the river and its wildlife habitat,” he said.

“One of our greatest concerns is the impact the wall and buoys will have on our only source of drinking water. Will it impact the flow of the river with silt? Will it affect water quantity and water quality?” asked San Ygnacio resident Frank Briscoe. “Reading the original signed petition of 1951 asking the IBWC for exclusion from the land takings for the reservoir was a tremendously uplifting experience for our group. It couldn’t have happened at a better time, just as the federal government has indicated they intend to pursue a claim of eminent domain again. 

“It’s an enormous waste of taxpayer money to build a barrier in the lowest part of the floodplain. When the residents of San Ygnacio petitioned to be excluded from condemnation, they agreed not to sue the U.S. government for flood damages. I’m not sure what that means when they add twenty-six miles of river obstructions around us,” he continued.

Briscoe noted that the Falcon Reservoir is now at about 27,879 acres of capacity, a significant drop from its original footprint of 85,237 acres. “The reservoir loses a half-inch every 100º day. According to the Texas Water Development Board, on September 19, 2026, for instance, the reservoir lost 1,160-acre feet of water through evaporation.”

SIDEBAR

With the Kiewit dozers and shredders temporarily silenced in fulfillment of their no-bid contract to rape the landscape and build a steel wall on sand in the flood plain, it’s a quiet time in San Ygnacio, an afternoon of birdsong and butterflies in the Plaza Blas María Uribe. 

It is here I feel the tranquility of what memory holds dear, familiar, and, at my age, eternal about this beautiful old town. 

On the drive from Laredo to San Ygnacio when we were children, Tía Delia was at the wheel and my mother on the passenger side. Grandmother María Dionicia Benavides de Gutiérrez, my sister Sandra, my cousin Afonso, and I sat in the backseat. 

The women prayed the rosary in Spanish fervently, sometimes hyperventilating when they asked Santa Maria to pray for us sinners, so much so that Alfonso and I exchanged worried looks. 

The San Ygnacio house at Laredo Street and Grant Avenue   was built in 1881 by our great-grandfather, Manuel Benavides Treviño. I loved its wooden double doors, the way they latched with hand forged hasps, rejascrowned with fleur de lis, the long room where we slept on cotton cots, the sparse antiquity of the place, waking to roosters crowing, the way coffee made on the stove smelled, the errand to buy corn tortillas made minutes before we got there.

Some of the best days of my life were the ones we spent there as children with our stern but loving grandmother, who had a wonderful giggle.

READ THE 1951 PETITION AND SIGNATURE SHEETS