Relampago Ranch

Duane's take

The official marker for Relampago Ranch in Hidalgo County is the story I'm carrying for you today, and it's one worth slowing down for. Now, before there was a ranch, before there was a community, there was land. Spanish land.

A grant that stretched out across this corner of South Texas the way only old-world claims could, big and quiet and older than the county lines drawn over it. And right through the middle of it ran the stage and military route between Rio Grande City and Brownsville. That road meant movement, and movement meant people, and people meant stories.

In 1852, a man named Thaddeus Rhodes arrived. He was born in 1828, and he came out here to serve as Hidalgo County clerk. That's how you got your foot in the door in those days.

You took a civic post, you learned the land, and somewhere along the way you acquired some acreage. Rhodes did exactly that. He would go on to serve as commissioner and as judge, a man who worked his way through the machinery of a young county and left his mark on it.

But Rhodes wasn't doing this alone. Around 1856, a man named Jose Maria Mora bought adjoining land. Mora was born in 1824, and together, he and Rhodes helped bring what the marker calls economic and social stability to the area.

That phrase does a lot of heavy lifting. Out on a stage route in mid-nineteenth century South Texas, stability wasn't given to you. You built it.

Mora farmed. He ranched. And he ran the only general store in the area.

The only one. You needed something, you knew where to go. When Jose Maria Mora passed, born 1824, gone by 1884, that work didn't stop.

His son Melchor carried it forward. Melchor Mora was a deputy sheriff and a Texas Ranger, and he kept farming, kept ranching, kept the family's place in this community alive. The name of this place, Relampago, means lightning in Spanish.

The marker gives you that translation plain and simple, and I'll let it sit right there without dressing it up. What I will say is this: the descendants of these families still live on that property. Not lived.

Still live. The stage road is long gone. The military route is a memory.

But the land that Thaddeus Rhodes came to in 1852, that Jose Maria Mora built a store on a few years later, that Melchor Mora ranged and farmed, that land still belongs to the people who came from those men. Some things in Texas, it turns out, are built to last.

What the marker says

Originally part of a Spanish land grant, Relampago (lightning) Ranch community lay along the stage and military route from Rio Grande City to Brownsville. In 1852 Thaddeus Rhodes (1828-1904) acquired acreage here when he came as Hidalgo county clerk. Later he served as commissioner and judge. He and Jose Maria Mora (1824-1884), who bought adjoining land about 1856, helped bring economic and social stability. Mora and later his son Melchor, a deputy sheriff and Texas Ranger, farmed, ranched and had the only general store in the area. Descendants still live on the property. (1980)