Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park

Duane's take

Here's how the marker at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park tells it, and I'm going to tell it to you now in my own way. Picture the Lower Rio Grande Valley before any of this was farmland or parkland or anything with a name attached to it. A lush thicket, the marker calls it.

Woodlands and brush, rich soil laid down by the Rio Grande itself over who knows how many centuries. And the thing that made this place genuinely unusual was what lived there together. Plants and animals more common north of the river, coexisting right alongside those more common to the south.

Two worlds, same thicket. Now, people have known this valley was something worth having for a long, long time. Back in the eighteenth century, the Spanish were making land grants to settlers throughout the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

They had a particular way of carving up the land down here. They called the divisions porciones, each one a narrow strip running back from the river so every grant had water access. Practical folks.

The grant covering this very ground was part of Porción 50, awarded to a man named Jose Antonio Zamora by the Ancient Jurisdiction of Reynosa, over in Mexico. For a good while, that valley stayed more or less as it had always been. Then came the twentieth century, and with it, the developers and the farmers.

Large-scale clearing began. And by the nineteen-thirties, much of the Rio Grande Valley had been cleared for citrus groves. That old thicket, that two-world coexistence of cedar elm and hackberry and mesquite, of ebony and Mexican ash and anaqua, was shrinking fast.

Here is where the story turns. On January 28, 1944, more than five hundred and eighty-six acres of native landscape were saved. Donated.

Lloyd M. and Edna Ruth Bentsen, she went by Dolly, and Elmer C. and Marie J. Bentsen gave that land to the Texas State Parks Board. Just handed it over.

More than five hundred and eighty-six acres of the real thing, the old thing, the brushlands and the woodlands where countless mammals and reptiles and resident and migrant birds still had a place to be. The park that carries the Bentsen name today preserves that piece of the valley's ancient environment, the marker says, for the education and enjoyment of its visitors. Cedar elm and hackberry and mesquite mixing with ebony and Mexican ash and anaqua, just like they always did, just like they did when it was part of an old Spanish porción, just like they did before any of us had a word for any of it.

Some gifts, you can still walk around inside of.

What the marker says

Before colonization, this valley was a lush thicket of woodlands and brush, nourished with rich soil deposited by the Rio Grande. Throughout the Lower Valley the landscape represented a broad variety of plants and animals. Types more common north of the river coexisted here with those more common to the south. Land grants were made to the original Spanish settlers of the Rio Grande Valley in the 18th century. The divisions were called porciones, each a narrow strip of land with access to the river. The grant here was part of Porción 50, awarded to Jose Antonio Zamora by the Ancient Jurisdiction of Reynosa (Mexico). At the beginning of the 20th century, developers and farmers began large-scale clearing of the land. By the 1930s, much of the Rio Grande Valley had been cleared for citrus groves. In 1944, more than 586 acres of native landscape here were saved and donated to the Texas State Parks Board. Cedar elm, hackberry, and mesquite mix with ebony, Mexican ash, and anaqua trees. Along with the brushlands, they provide habitat for countless mammals, reptiles, and resident and migrant birds. The park preserves a part of the valley's ancient environment for the education and enjoyment of its visitors. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986. SUPPLEMENTAL PLATE: The parkland was donated on January 28, 1944 to the State Parks Board by Lloyd M. and Edna Ruth (Dolly) Bentsen, and Elmer C. and Marie J. Bentsen.