Soldiers, Ranchers and Miners in the Big Bend

SOLDIERS, RANCHERS AND MINERS IN THE BIG BEND SEPTEMBER 1369 CHAPTER IV LAND AND LAND OWNERSHIP IN THE IMMEDIATE AREA OF WHAT IS NOW CASTOLON THE GEOLOGY OF THE REGION Castolon is almost in the middle of an intermontane area between the Mesa de Anguila and the Chisos Mountains and the immediate Chisos foothills. It is a plain of low elevation which is broken by many mesa-like hills and cut by many stream channels. These channels carry water only during and immediately after heavy rains in the surrounding hills, Castolon is near the middle of the great sunken block between the Terlingua Fault on the west and Cow Heaven Fault to the east. The Castolon Complex is located on an old Gravel fill of the post-early Miocene period. The fill is extensively cut by stream erosion, and along the walls of these eroded gullies may be seen the characteristic forms of sand, sandstone, conglomerates, and cobblestones of various types and sizes which have been deposited in the fault block by the flood waters from the higher lands surrounding the area. This Old Grave: mesa-like plain stands forty or so feet above the alluvial floodplain of the Rio Grande. The floodplain varies from a few feet to a mile or more in width in the area. This indicates that at various times during the life of the Rio Grande it has wandered about in its course, thus cutting back the Old Gravel fill to its present location and giving to it the appearance o,f being low-lying hills adjoining the valley of the Rio Grande, 1 TOPOGRAPHY OF THE AREA As mentioned above, Castolon is situated on a mesa-like bluff of the Old Gravel formation overlooking a broad flood-plain of the Rio Grande. This mesa-like Old Gravel fill is considerably cut by the small drainage channels which empty onto the floodplain and into the Rio Crande. These many channels, or dry arroyos, tend to give the area the appearance of rolling hills, whereas, in fact, it is a low plain which has been left hill-like by centuries of erosion. Just to the north and west of Castolon is the only major drainage system of the region--Blue Creek--which drains the southwestern portion of the Chisos Mountains and the intervening lands on its way to the Rio Grande, Blue Creek is a dry channel except for short periods during and following heavy rains in the mountains to the north and east. Blue Creek, like the Rio Grande, has cut through the Old Gravel fill as it empties onto the floodplain. The alluvial floodplain of the Rio Grande 1. Robert J. Yates and George A. Thompson, "Geology and auicksilver of the Terlingua District, Texas, IT Geological Survey Professional Papers 312, 4; John A. Wilson, "Cenozoic History of the Big Bend Area," West Texas Geoloqical Society, Publication Vo. 65-51 (October 1965), 36. presents a great contrast with the Old Gravel fill above. The floodplain is somewhat like a great green snake winding its way along the drab grays and browns of the dwarf shrubs of the adjoining hills. It is along this floodplain that man for centuries has lived and tilled the sub-irrigated and overflow lands as a means of livelihood. It was here along this floodplain between Castolon and the mouth of Terlingua Creek in the vicinity of Santa Helena Canyon that the earliest settlers of the lower Big Bend established themselves and made their homes. The General Land Office of the State of Texas realized that the narrow valley of the Rio Grande was the most valuable land of the area, and thus the designated sections as they were surveyed for distribution to the various agencies active in the early development of the state were not laid out in the usual one- mile-square blocks, but rather in long narrow blocks so as to give more potential landowners access to the river and the advantages of the fertile floodplain. The land from the mouth of Santa Helena Canyon down the river to Johnson's ranch was created into thirty-six surveys, numbered one to thirty-six and labeled Block 16, and assigned to the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railroad Company. While this assignment was made under a legislative act of January 30, 1854, controversy arose with the railroad, the state claiming that due to excessive and unnecessary mileage the railroad had acquired too much land from the state. Thus by District Court action of April 6, 1892, all of Block 16 was recovered by the State of Texas, and then placed 2 on the market for sale as sectionalized school lands. For ease of handling, the area has come to be known as Block 16, G. H, andS. A. Ry. Co. land. As the landwas takenup, however, it became clear that all of the thirty-six sections of the survey were not equally blessed with wide and fertile floodplain lands. Some had little or no floodplain, as the Rio Grande cut high, overhanging cliffs right up to various types of more re- sistant formations, thus leaving nothing but high, semi-arid hills or mesas, while others were badly cut by the drainage channels from the mountains to the north and east. In time it was found that sections 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 35 were the more desirable of the sections of Block 16. And it is these sections that we shall follow up in tracing the early owners and settlers of the Castolon area. 3 EARLY OCCUPANTS AND OWNERS OF THE LAND With the beginning of quicksilver mining in the Terlingua district in 1899, Mexican-American families began to move into the lower Big Bend area. Most of the families lived near the mines; however many of them settled at various small floodplain 2. J. H. Walker, Acting Land Commissioner, to Wayne Re Cartledge (letter), October 23, 1928. 3. Wayne R, Cartledge (interview), April 12, 1967, valleys along Terlingua Creek and the Rio Grande. The Molinar settlement was about halfway between Terlingua Arriba and Ter- lingua Abajo not too far from Rattlesnake Mountain. Terlingua Abajo, as the name indicates, was below, or near, the river. Then some three or so miles below the mouth of Santa Helena Canyon was Coyote, and below that was the Hernandez ranch settlement--the present Castolon. During the first few years of residence in the area, it appears that none of these Mexican-American families made any effort to acquire title to the land on which they lived. It was not long, however, until they began either to lease the sections on which they had settled or to file application for a survey that they might purchaseO4 An examination of the early Lease and Deed Records of Rrewster County indicates that all of the early holders or owners of land in Block 16, G. H. and S. A. Ry. Co., were Mexican-Americans. For example, Cipriano Hernandez leascd sections 17 and 18, Block 16, in 1901, for a two-year pc.r-I(t<ii. Then in 3930 he fi1t.d on sections 13 and 14, Block 16, with certificate number 1895, abstract numbers 5338 ard 6437, Durinq this period and up to 1915 no Anglo-Americans had ~iled on any of thc sections, However, the following Mexican-Americans had filed on the fullowing sections: Miguel De La 0 filed on section 5, Block 16, in 1910; Adolfo Arredondo filed application for survey or1 section 6 in 1906; Arredondo seemingly did not 4, Hrewster County Lease Records, Book No. 1, 95. follow up on the application, and in 1918 Cruz Rey filed a certificate of occupancy on section 6. In the meantime, in 1913, Cruz Rey had filed on section 7, Block 16; section 8 had little river floodplain and thus was passed up by the Mexican-Americans. Ruperto Chnvarria, the patriarch of the Coyote settlement, filed on section 9, Block 16, in 1908, which he held until he sold it to the State of Texas for park purposes in 1942; sections 10 and 11 were passed up by the Mexican-Americans because of the char- acter of the land; Patricio Marquez, by certificate number 1894, filed on section 12, Block 16. Then Cipriano Hernandez filed on sections 13 and 14, Block 16; and section 15, the last of the desirable sections of Block 16, was filed on by Agapito Carrasco Before 1920 a few Anglo-Americans began to see the possi- bilities of developing the river area. In 1914 Clyde Buttrill acquired section 12 from Patricio Marquez, and sections 13 and 14 from Cipriano Hernandez. In 1915 C. E. Metcalf filed on section 4, Block 16. As early as 1906 one M. C. Cantu Terrazas had filed an application for the survey of this section, but seemingly had not followed up on the application. In the mean- ., time, with the border raids which had resulted from the Mexi- can Revolution of 1910, a company of Texas Rangers had been sent 5. Brewster County Deed Records, Vols. 6, 51, 65, 67, 68, 73, and 99. into the Santa Helena area under Captain Carroll Bates, The borde~ raids proved distasteful to Clyde Buttrill even though, with the aid of James L. Sublett, he had cleared and leveled the floodplain of his sections and had produced a few good crops on the land. He sold out in 1918 to Captain Bates and left the river farming to the Captain and his associates. Two other Rangers-- Sergeant Will C, Jones and M.

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