DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one drivin' you through it. Now Cameron County, down there where Texas meets the Rio Grande, has a story that starts with a line drawn on a map and ends on a battlefield — and the man it's named for never lived to see either one. The county was created on February 21, 1848, carved out of Nueces County.
It was organized that same year, on August 7, 1848. First county seat was Santa Rita, and Santa Rita held that title from 1848 to 1849 before Brownsville took over — and Brownsville has held it ever since. But here's where the story gets heavy.
The county bears the name of Ewen Cameron, born in 1811, dead by 1843. Captain in the Mier Expedition. And that word — shot — that's the word the marker uses, plain and unsparing.
Shot at Queretaro. Cameron was thirty-two years old in the year he died, give or take, and the county that would carry his name for generations hadn't even been imagined yet. Then there's the land itself.
This particular stretch of Texas has seen more than its share of history's hinge points. The earliest battles of the Mexican War were fought right here in Cameron County. And when the Civil War finally groaned to its close, the last battle of that war — that one was fought here too.
First and last. The same ground. Cameron County holds both ends of that thread, named for a man who never got to hold anything at all.
What the marker says
Created February 21, 1848; From Nueces County; Organized August 7, 1848; Named in honor of Ewen Cameron, 1811-1843; Captain in the Mier Expedition; Shot at Queretaro; County Seat, Santa Rita 1848-1849; Brownsville, since the earliest battles of the Mexican War, and the last battle of the Civil War were fought in this county