Rancho de Santa Maria

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Rancho de Santa Maria, out in Cameron County. Now settle in, because this piece of land has been a lot of things to a lot of people over a long stretch of time. It starts, as so many South Texas stories do, with Spain.

Back in 1777, this ground was part of the La Feria Grant, a grand sweep of land measuring twelve and a half leagues. That's not a small piece of real estate, friends. But empires divide, time passes, and by 1843 that original grant had been partitioned into six separate units.

The rancho you're passing near was one of them. By the 1850s, the place was serving a military purpose, sitting right between Fort Brown, twenty-eight miles to the southeast, and Fort Ringgold, sixty-five miles to the northwest. It made a natural sub-post, a waypoint between two anchors of the frontier.

Then came the 1860s, and somebody had ambitions. This very locality was the proposed site for a place called Homeville, which the marker describes as the first small-acreage promotion in the area. Homeville.

You can almost hear the hope in that name. It didn't take hold the way its promoters imagined, but the land kept right on moving. The compound you'd recognize today was built in 1870 by a man named L.J.

Hynes. And Hynes was not a man who did things halfway. He put up buildings for a dairy, a kitchen, and ammunition storage.

He established a stage depot, a general store, a telegraph office, and a shipping wharf on the river. In 1876, he became the first postmaster here. One man, one compound, connecting this stretch of the Rio Grande to the wider world by stage, by wire, and by water.

Then in 1880, a chapel went up. In 1892, Frank Rabb bought the ranch, and the story rolled on. It rolled all the way to 1916, when border troubles brought the United States Army to Rancho de Santa Maria, establishing their headquarters right here on ground that had already seen Spain's land grants, Texas soldiers, would-be town builders, a postmaster with a general store and a telegraph line, and a chapel built for quieter moments.

Some places just keep getting called on. This is one of them.

What the marker says

Part of Spain's 1777 La Feria Grant (12.5 leagues), partitioned into 6 units 1843. Here in 1850's was a sub-post of Fort Brown (28 mi. SE) and Fort Ringgold (65 mi. NW). This was proposed site in 1860's for "Homeville", this locality's first small-acreage promotion. Present compound, built 1870 by L.J. Hynes, has buildings for dairy, kitchen, ammunition. Hynes, first Postmaster (1876), had stage depot, general store, telegraph office, shipping wharf on river. Chapel was built 1880. In 1892, Frank Rabb bought the ranch. In 1916 border troubles, U.S. Army established headquarters here.