DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Sebastian, down in Willacy County. Now, every good Texas town has got layers to it — land, law, loss — and Sebastian's got all three stacked up neat as fence posts. So pull up a seat and let me walk you through it.
This ground started out as part of the San Juan de Carricitos land grant. That's old Spanish colonial territory, the kind of land with deep roots and a long memory. From there it passed into the holdings of South Texas' famed King Ranch, which tells you something about the scale of ambition this corner of the state has always attracted.
For a while, the townsite went by the name Stillman Town Tract. Then came 1906, and somebody with a railroad tie to the future decided a new name was in order. The town was renamed Sebastian — in honor of an officer of the Rock Island Railroad.
Just like that, a place gets a new identity. By 1914, the Sebastian Realty Company was out beating the drum, promoting the town with an eye toward turning it into a major agricultural center. Big dreams, wide open land, the usual South Texas cocktail of hope and hard work.
But here's where the story turns, and you feel the weight of it. During the early twentieth century, lawlessness had settled across South Texas like a second sky. And Sebastian did not escape it.
A bandit raid came to town. When the smoke cleared, two members of the Austin family were dead. Two people, one family, one raid.
The marker doesn't dress it up, and neither will I. Sebastian grew up from ancient land grants and railroad ambitions — and it paid a price that no realty company ever put in a brochure.
What the marker says
Originally part of the San Juan de Carricitos land grant, this townsite later was part of South Texas' famed King Ranch. Sebastian was known as Stillman Town Tract until 1906, when it was renamed to honor an officer of the Rock Island Railroad. In 1914, the Sebastian Realty Company was promoting the town in the hope that it would become a major agricultural center. During the early 20th-century period of lawlessness in South Texas, Sebastian experienced a bandit raid in which two members of the Austin family were killed. (1985)