Dolores Townsite

Duane's take

The way I hear it, this comes straight off the official marker for the Dolores Townsite, right here in Kinney County, and friend, it is a story worth telling slow. Now, most land deals in Texas history were big. But John Charles Beales wasn't dealin' in acres the way most men counted them.

Beales, born in 1804, died in 1878, held the title of empresario over seventy million acres. Seventy million. That's present Southern and Western Texas and New Mexico, and it made him Texas' largest known land king.

Let that number sit with you a moment before we move on. In 1833, Beales and a partner brought fifty-nine settlers to this stretch of Kinney County. The plan was to build a town, a real town, with a name and a future.

They called it Dolores, named for Beales' Mexican wife. It was the only settlement ever founded in what history would come to call his ill-fated Rio Grande colony of 1834 to 1836. That word, ill-fated, is doing a lot of work in this story.

Indian raids started wearing on the settlers. Then came the drouth. Either one of those might have been enough, but Dolores was being asked to survive both at once.

Still, the colony held on. Right up until 1836. That's when the death blow arrived, and it didn't come from one direction.

It came from two at the same time. The Texas Revolution was in full roar, and the Mexican Army was pushing through the region. The settlers fled.

And while they were fleeing, while they were already running for their lives, Comanches struck one of the parties. When it was over, all but seven of that group were dead. Seven survivors.

That was all that remained of the dream of Dolores. The town didn't fade. It didn't empty out slowly the way some places do, folks driftin' off one family at a time until the last lamp goes dark.

Dolores ended. Right there in 1836, in the chaos between an army and a raid, the colony that John Charles Beales, the biggest land king Texas ever knew, had staked his vision on was simply gone. Seventy million acres, fifty-nine settlers, one town, one name.

And in the end, seven souls walking away from the place that used to be Dolores.

What the marker says

Only settlement founded in John Charles Beales' ill-fated Rio Grande colony of 1834-1836. Beales (1804-1878) -- empresario of 70,000,000 acres in present Southern and Western Texas and New Mexico -- was Texas' largest known land king. In 1833 he and a partner brought 59 settlers here to colonize a town to be named for Beales' Mexican wife. Indian raids and drouth soon took their toll, but the death blow came in 1836. As the group fled the Mexican Army during the Texas Revolution, Comanches killed all but 7 of one party. This ended the town's existence. (1970)