Long Ranch Strips Came Before Rio Grande City's Streets

Picture a ribbon of land with one narrow end at the Rio Grande and miles of grazing room behind it. That was the shape of a porcion.

In 1767, a Spanish royal commission surveyed the river settlements and divided each district into porciones. The long strips gave many landholders river frontage while leaving room for herds.

This land pattern came before the river became an international boundary. Many owners lived in towns such as Camargo on the south bank while their herds grazed to the north. Carnestolendas was an early ranch settlement where Rio Grande City would grow.

Henry Clay Davis married María Hilaria de la Garza in 1846 and settled at Carnestolendas, later called Rancho Davis. By the late 1840s, Rio Grande City was taking shape there with broad, straight streets. The town plan was new, but the ground beneath it already carried an older Tejano ranching story.