DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker for El Horcon Tract and Rio Rico in Hidalgo County tells it like this, and it's a story worth hearing slow. It starts, as so many Texas border tales do, with a river that couldn't make up its mind. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican War — that's 1846 to 1848 — and it drew the line between Mexico and the United States right down the main channel of the Rio Grande.
Simple enough, you'd think. Except the Rio Grande is not a river that respects anybody's paperwork. It meanders.
It shifts. It cuts new channels when the mood strikes it. And every time it moved, it dragged an international boundary dispute along behind it.
So in 1884, the two countries sat down again and hammered out another treaty. This one said, alright — only natural changes in the river's course would affect the boundary. Man-made diversions don't count.
And to make sure somebody was minding the store, the International Boundary Commission was established in 1889 to administer that very treaty. Now here is where things get interesting. In 1906, the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company dug a canal — unauthorized, mind you — about two miles south of this spot.
That canal altered the natural course of the Rio Grande. And under the rules of the 1884 treaty, a man-made diversion doesn't move the boundary. So when the river followed that new cut, it left behind a 419-acre section of United States property sitting south of the river.
Stranded, surrounded, technically still American soil — but nobody could get to it from the American side without crossing into Mexico first. That piece of land was called El Horcon tract. Now, land has a way of filling up.
And El Horcon tract filled up with something the 1920s and 1930s had a particular appetite for — a resort and gambling community called Rio Rico, which flourished there for decades. People came for the gambling, came for the good times. And all the while, Mexican authorities were increasingly the ones running things on the ground, even though the ground itself was still, legally speaking, U.S. territory.
By 1970, the United States made it official and granted Mexico territorial rights over El Horcon tract and Rio Rico. And that, you might figure, was the end of it. It was not the end of it.
A native of Rio Rico sued the United States government. He wanted his U.S. citizenship guaranteed — because he'd been born on American soil, even if that soil had spent its life looking like it belonged to somebody else. That lawsuit touched off an eight-year legal battle.
And when the dust finally settled, about 200 people who had been born in Rio Rico prior to 1970 were recognized as U.S. citizens. Two hundred people. Born in a resort town that technically belonged to America, administered by Mexico, built on land stranded by an unauthorized canal, on a river that never did stay put.
The Rio Grande moved. The lawyers followed. And somewhere in the fine print of three treaties and one stubborn lawsuit, two hundred people found their country.
What the marker says
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican War (1846-48) designated the main channel of the Rio Grande as the Mexico-U.S. boundary. Disputes arising from frequent changes in the river's course led to the Treaty of 1884 which recognized only those river diversions resulting from natural occurences. The International Boundary Commission was established in 1889 to administer the Treaty of 1884. In 1906 the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company dug an unauthorized canal about two miles south of here which altered the natural course of the Rio Grande. As a result, a 419-acre section of U.S. property called El Horcon tract was isolated south of the river. Although still U.S. territory according to the Treaty of 1884, the tract and the popular gambling and resort community of Rio Rico which flourished there during the 1920s and 1930s became increasingly subject to Mexican administration and jurisdiction. After the U.S. granted Mexico territorial rights over El Horcon tract and Rio Rico in 1970, a native of Rio Rico sued the U.S. government to guarantee his U.S. citizenship. This lawsuit began an eight-year legal battle that eventually led to U.S. citizenship for about 200 people born in Rio Rico prior to 1970. (1994)