Robstown Labor Camp

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Robstown Labor Camp, out on Nueces County ground. Pull up a chair, because this one's got layers. Now, Nueces County in the early twentieth century was serious cotton country.

Major cotton producing district, the marker calls it, and that meant one thing: you needed workers, and plenty of them. Migrant workers rolled through towns like Robstown to get after the cotton and vegetable farms, season after season. And for a long time, where they laid their heads at night, well, that was a patchwork situation at best.

Then along comes President Franklin Roosevelt's farm security administration with an answer. Nine migrant labor camps, built across the state of Texas. Nine.

The Robstown Labor Camp was one of them, completed in 1940, designed to give migrant workers housing and other resources while they worked that Nueces County soil. Nine camps, and this was one. Remember that number.

World War II changes the picture, the way it changed just about everything. The camp gets handed over to the Department of Agriculture and the War Food Administration, overseeing the place to meet wartime labor needs. The country needed food, the fields needed hands, and Robstown was part of that machinery.

By 1948, the camp transitioned to county operation, and it kept right on running as a labor camp all the way until 1968. Nearly three decades of continuous use, and at various points those facilities were doing more than just providing a roof. Community activities happened there.

Medical resources. Educational services, including job training and a school for children. A school.

For children whose families were moving from harvest to harvest. Now here's where the story picks up another current running underneath it. Come the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty is in full swing, and it brings the Volunteers in Service to America organization right into Robstown.

Those workers resided at the camp while they provided relief and support to the community. And during this same stretch of time, the camp becomes something else too: a site of local civil rights activism. The ground itself is starting to mean something beyond just shelter.

But conditions had been declining, and by the end of the decade, the camp was closed down. Closed. Then 1970 arrives, and Hurricane Celia hits.

And that shuttered camp, those same buildings, they open back up to house displaced Robstown residents when they had nowhere else to go. That place just would not stop being needed. The 1970s bring another chapter.

The American G.I. Forum leases part of the camp property and goes on to build low income housing there. And based on the efforts of some of the area's first Hispanic elected officials, by 1978, part of the camp land is turned into a public park.

A park that gets expanded again in 2002. Thousands of residents, the marker says. Thousands of people impacted by the resources and programs at that site.

Cotton fields, wartime kitchens, a schoolroom, a shelter from the storm, a platform for civil rights, a neighborhood park. One piece of ground in Robstown, Nueces County, and it just kept on answering the call, whatever the call happened to be.

What the marker says

A major cotton producing district of Texas during the early twentieth century, Nueces County saw many migrant workers come through towns like Robstown for work in cotton and vegetable farms. Robstown Labor Camp was completed in 1940 as one of nine migrant labor camps built across Texas to provide housing and other resources for migrant workers as a program of President Franklin Roosevelt’s farm security administration. During World War II the camp was overseen by the Department of Agriculture and the War Food Administration to facilitate wartime labor needs. It transitioned to county operation in 1948. Until 1968, the camp would continue to be used as a labor camp. At various points, camp facilities provided community activities, medical resources, and educational services such as job training and a school for children. In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty efforts brought the volunteers in service to America organization into Robstown to provide relief and support, and the workers resided at the camp. By the end of the decade, the camp was closed down after years of declining conditions. When hurricane Celia hit in 1970, the camp was used to house displaced Robstown residents. During this timeframe the camp became a site of local civil rights activism. In the 1970s, the American G.I. forum leased part of the camp property where they went on to build low income housing. Based on the efforts of some of the area’s first Hispanic elected officials, by 1978, part of the camp land was turned into a public park, which was expanded in 2002. Over the years the camp has had many uses and residents, with thousands of residents impacted by the resources and programs at the site.