DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the man passing it along. Now, before Texas was Texas, this stretch of land along the Atascosa River had already lived a whole life. Back in the 1700s, it had been set aside as ranch land for Mission San Jose, twenty miles north up in San Antonio.
But by the 1820s, it sat empty — unsettled, quiet, waiting. Then came Jose Antonio Navarro. Navarro was born in 1795, and by 1828 he was a prominent man in San Antonio, the kind of man who knew how to walk into a governor's office and make a case.
And that's exactly what he did — he beseeched the Governor of the Mexican state to grant him four leagues of land for pasture. Now, four leagues. That's not a little kitchen garden.
That is land with ambition. Officially, the grant came through in 1831, though the marker notes he might have occupied the ranch even before the paperwork caught up with him. Some men don't wait on paper.
Then 1836 rolled around, and Jose Antonio Navarro did something that would echo through history. He signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Let that settle for a moment.
The same man who'd been quietly building a ranch along this river put his name on the document that made Texas what it is. After that, the years pulled him away — business, politics, the churn of a young republic finding its footing. The ranch had to wait its turn.
But by 1853, Navarro had seen enough of elsewhere. He concentrated his ranching interests right here and started spending his summers in a log house overlooking the Atascosa River. You can almost picture it — a man who'd signed declarations and argued politics, sitting on a river bluff in the summer heat, watching his cattle.
And those cattle were considerable. By the 1860 census, the ranch carried four hundred head of cattle, two hundred swine, thirty-five horses, and twelve oxen — all spread across nearly eighteen thousand acres. In 1856, he'd registered his cattle brand in Atascosa County.
In 1857, he donated land for a county seat, though that seat picked itself up and moved to Pleasanton by 1858. Even that didn't seem to slow him down. Now here's a detail the marker drops in almost casually, like it's nothing — oil was noted on this land as early as 1867.
Noted. As early as 1867. Make of that what you will.
After the Civil War, Navarro turned the ranch over to his sons. And in 1871, Jose Antonio Navarro died in San Antonio. Following his death, the land was divided among his five children.
But the family held on. They held on for years, for decades — until 1894, when his son Sixto Eusebio Navarro, born in 1833, finally sold the old ranch home. From a mission's pasture in the 1700s, to a Declaration of Independence in 1836, to nearly eighteen thousand acres of cattle and swine and horses, to oil seeping up from the ground in 1867 — this piece of the Atascosa River valley carried more history than most land ever gets asked to hold.
And Navarro's name is still on it, one way or another.
What the marker says
This land had once been allocated in the 1700s as a ranch for Mission San Jose in San Antonio (20 mi. N), but in the 1820s was left unsettled. In 1828 prominent San Antonio resident Jose Antonio Navarro (1795-1871) beseeched the Governor of the Mexican state to grant him four leagues of land for pasture. Navarro officially received his grant for this land on the Atascosa River in 1831, though he might have occupied the ranch earlier. In 1836, Navarro signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, and in the following years was occupied by business and politics elsewhere. By 1853 he had concentrated his ranching interests here and spent the summers in a log house overlooking the Atascosa River. He registered his cattle brand in Atascosa County in 1856, and donated land for a county seat in 1857, though the seat was moved to Pleasanton in 1858. The 1860 census listed 400 cattle, 200 swine, 35 horses, and 12 oxen on the ranch of almost 18,000 acres. Oil was noted on this land as early as 1867. Navarro turned the ranch over to his sons after the Civil War, and following his death in 1871 in San Antonio, the land was divided among his five children. This acreage remained in the family until his son Sixto Eusebio Navarro (b.1833) sold the old ranch home in 1894. (1986) Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986