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RELAMPAGO,
TEXAS
Hidalgo County,
South
Texas
Off Highway 281
10 Miles SE of Weslaco
Not shown on the state map
Population: 104 (2000)
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History on
an Onionskin
Relámpago is the Spanish word for "lightning flash." The land
had originally been part of a 1790 land grant that remained undivided
until 1848. When Juan José Ballí, the original grantee died, this
portion of the grant fell to his son, Vicente Hinojosa. Vicente’s
son, Cirildo is credited to be the first settler on the portion of
land that was to become Relampago.
In 1852 Thaddeus Rhodes of Brownsville
purchased a large plot and two years later a rancher named José María
Mora bought the neighboring plot (1,400 acres). Rhodes and Mora merged
their holdings into the Relampago Ranch. By 1880 the community had
158 residents.
In the mid 1880s the community was serviced by the Brownsville
stage line. In 1902 a parcel of land was sold to the American Rio
Grande Land and Irrigation Company and six years later the town was
platted by a subsidiary of ARGL&I. The town was all but washed away
by a 1909 flood, which accounts for the notable lack of buildings
today. A post office was briefly open from 1910 to 1908.
The old store (established by Mora in the 1880s) closed in the late
1920s. 200 people continued to live here into the 1960s but the development
of a colonia rivaled the town, eventually taking the identity of the
town by right of population. In the mid 1980s the population was down
to 135.
The Relampago Cemetery has been used for several generations of the
Mora and Rhodes families and the land is now used primarily for the
growing of onions, particularly the 1015 variety. |
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