Hebbronville: A Town Built Around a Railroad Stop

The Texas-Mexican Railway pushed through this part of South Texas in 1883. A rancher named James R. Hebbron helped arrange land for a new townsite, and the town took his name. The old train station from a nearby stop was loaded onto a flatcar and moved about a mile and a half west to the new location.

When Texas created Jim Hogg County in 1913 from parts of Duval and Brooks counties, Hebbronville became the county seat by a unanimous vote of 176 residents. The county was named for James Stephen Hogg, the first Texas-born governor of the state. The community has long been majority Mexican-American. Scotus College, a Franciscan seminary originally founded in Mexico, relocated to Hebbronville in 1926. By 2000, the town's population was about 4,500.