Bustamante (Rancho Las Comitas)

Duane's take

The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just here to do it justice. Out here in Zapata County, if you listen close to the dry wind comin' off the brush, you might catch the echo of something old; something that started not with a town, not with a deed, but with a family and a decision to go further. Don Pedro Jose Bustamante and his family settled this land in 1822.

That's not a typo. Eighteen twenty-two. Before Texas was Texas.

Before most of this frontier had a name anyone bothered to write down. Don Pedro brought settlers with him, and horses, cattle, sheep, and goats, everything you'd need to carve a life out of country that wasn't exactly rollin' out the welcome mat. The Mexican government eventually made it official, awarding Bustamante a land grant of twenty-two thousand, one hundred and forty-two acres in 1835.

That is a lot of land. That is an ambition made into acreage. Now, the frontier being what it was, the family didn't just build a homestead and hope for the best.

They built a sandstone blockhouse; early on, sturdy as resolve; to hold against Indian raids. Stone walls and family will, out there where the horizon just keeps going. By the 1870s, the place had grown into something with a name that stuck: Rancho Las Comitas, named for the Comita tree that grew on the property.

And Las Comitas wasn't just a ranch; it became a whole world unto itself. Homes went up. A school.

A store. The kind of self-sufficiency that doesn't ask the outside world for much, because the outside world is a long ride away. Part of that land would later get pulled into a Supreme Court case, claimed by the State of Texas, which tells you something about what happens when something's worth having.

But the family held on. In 1926, the community got its name made official the way things get official; a post office opened, and Herlinda Bustamante took on the role of postmistress. Bustamante, Texas.

Named for the people who'd already been there over a hundred years. Then came the 1930s, and the ground started giving up a different kind of secret. Oil and gas discovered in the area.

Much of the land got leased out for exploration wells, and ranch life shifted, the way it does when the earth beneath your feet turns out to be valuable in ways your great-great-grandfather couldn't have imagined. Three cemeteries sit on this land: the Bustamante Cemetery, the Cameron Cemetery, and the Gracia Cemetery, holding numerous members of the Bustamante family, generation after generation returned to the same soil they first broke in 1822. And the ranch?

Still in operation. Still run by Bustamante descendants. Some stories don't end.

They just keep going, like a land grant that never forgot whose name was on it.

What the marker says

The unincorporated village of Bustamante, settled by Don Pedro Jose Bustamante and his family in 1822, is located on a 22,142-acre land grant awarded by the Mexican government to Bustamante in 1835. He brought other settlers, horses, cattle, sheep, and goats to help open up the frontier. An early sandstone blockhouse built by the Bustamante family provided protection from Indian raids. During the 1870s the village became the headquarters of Rancho Las Comitas, named for the Comita tree which grew on the property. Las Comitas gave rise to a community of homes, a school and a store, making the ranch almost self sufficient. Part of the land later was claimed by the State of Texas in a Supreme Court case. Numerous Bustamante family members are buried in three ranch cemeteries: the Bustamante Cemetery, the Cameron Cemetery, and the Gracia Cemetery. The community was officially named Bustamante in 1926 when a post office was established with Herlinda Bustamante as postmistress. Ranch life changed in the 1930s with the discovery of oil and gas in the area. Although much of the land was leased for exploration wells, the ranch is still in operation under the direction of Bustamante descendants.