Penitas

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Peñitas, Hidalgo County. Now settle in, because this story goes back a long, long way. We're talkin' before Texas was Texas, before the United States was anything at all.

We're goin' all the way back to 1749. That's when a Spaniard named José de Escandón came through and started settlin' families on the Villa of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Reynosa land grant, down in Mexico. That was the seed.

But seeds have a way of sprouting in unexpected places. The community of Peñitas didn't grow up inside those original grant boundaries. It grew up north of Reynosa, on a stretch of land called the ejidos, which is Spanish for town commons.

Grazing land, mostly. A place for livestock to roam. And the name?

Peñitas. It means Little Pebbles. Named for the gravel deposits in the area.

Not poetry exactly, but honest. Now Escandón also had his eye on a spot west of Reynosa for a mission. And not long after, another small mission took shape: San Joaquín del Monte.

That mission did more than preach. It ministered to indigenous people and to the settlers livin' on the north bank of the Rio Grande, and it protected those colonists from attacks. That's a lot of work for a small mission on a stretch of commons.

But the land was doin' something else too. It was becoming a place where people gathered to buy and sell goods, a commercial hub for its mother city of Reynosa. And one trade above all others started to shine: salt.

Salt was essential for preserving food and curing hides, and for settlers out here, that made it just about as good as gold. The salt trade became specially prosperous. By the 1760s, a number of settlers were working on ranches along the north bank of the Rio Grande.

Then by 1767, the Spanish government started granting porciones, which are allotments of land, to certain colonists, while others rented land on the ejidos for ranching or farming. Out of that patchwork of ranches and rented ground, communities began to take shape. Three ranches in particular, Peñitas, Tabasco, and Ojo de Agua, became the forerunners of three towns: Peñitas, La Joya, and Abra, respectively.

Little ranching communities that would outlast the empires that created them. Fast forward to the mid-1800s, and Peñitas had a new kind of visitor rolling up the Rio Grande: steamboats. The town became a refueling stop, sitting right there on the water, useful to anyone who needed to keep their boiler fired and their wheels turning.

Then came the early twentieth century, and Peñitas had grown into something with real roots: residences, stores, a cemetery, a post office, a school, and a stop on the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad. Not bad for a patch of gravel commons north of an old Spanish land grant.

Peñitas incorporated in 1992, and today it continues to thrive as a community rich in cultural heritage. Little Pebbles, they called it. And little pebbles, as any Texan can tell you, have a way of holdin' the ground together.

What the marker says

The community of Peñitas, which derives its name, meaning "Little Pebbles," from area gravel deposits, traces its origins to the colonization efforts of Spaniard José de Escandón. In 1749, he settled families on the Villa of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Reynosa land grant in Mexico. Peñitas developed on a section of the ejidos (town commons) north of Reynosa as grazing land for livestock. Escandón selected a site west of Reynosa for a mission. Soon, another small mission, San Joaquín del Monte, formed, ministering to indigenous people and to settlers living on the north bank. The mission also protected colonists from attacks. This area quickly became the focus of commercial trade for its mother city of Reynosa as residents gathered here to sell and purchase goods. The salt trade became specially prosperous for settlers; salt was essential for preserving food and curing hides. By the 1760s, a number of settlers worked on ranches on the north bank of the Rio Grande. By 1767, the Spanish government granted porciones (allotments of land) to certain colonists, while other rented land on the ejidos for ranching or farming. Soon, ranching communities developed on the ejidos, including the Peñitas, Tabasco and Ojo de Agua ranches, which were forerunners of the towns of Peñitas, La Joya and Abra, respetively. In the mid-1800s, Peñitas became a refueling stop for steamboat traffic and by the early 20th century had residences, stores, a cemetery, a post office, a school and a stop on the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railroad. Today, Peñitas, which incorporated in 1992, continues to thrive as a community rich in cultural heritage. (2007)