Bazán and Longoria Murders
Linn, Hidalgo County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On September 27, 1915, Jesus Bazán and his son-in-law, Antonio Longoria – both recognized Tejano community leaders and the latter a Hidalgo County commissioner – traveled to a local Texas Ranger camp on the Sam Lane ranch to report a horse robbery that occurred a few days prior at their ranch north of the Rio Grande in Hidalgo County. Although Bazán and Longoria should have had the law on their side, anti-Mexican violence in the region was persistent. After a seemingly uneventful conversation with Ranger Captain Henry Ransom, the two men left on horseback. When they were about 300 yards from the campsite, laborers on Sam Lane’s ranch witnessed Captain Ransom and two civilians climb into a Model T Ford and follow the men. One passenger reached outside a window and shot both men in the back. Bazán and Longoria fell from their horses and died on the side of the road. Unfazed by the shooting, it was reported that Captain Ransom returned to the campsite to take a nap, leaving the bodies to decompose. Several days later, a family friend and neighbor buried the men where they fell. Neither the Texas Rangers nor local law enforcement investigated, explained or reported the murders. In 1919, as a result of the Bazán and Longoria murders and many other incidents of violence against Mexican Americans, the Texas Legislature conducted a formal investigation into state and local law enforcement practices. Many law enforcement groups were reorganized as a result. Memories of the murders continue through oral tradition, reflecting this violent yet pivotal time in Texas history. (2016)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On September 27, 1915, Tejano community leaders Jesus Bazán and his son-in-law Antonio Longoria, a Hidalgo County commissioner, rode to a Texas Ranger camp to report a horse theft. After a seemingly ordinary conversation with Captain Henry Ransom, the two men were followed and shot in the back as they rode away, their bodies left on the roadside until a neighbor buried them where they fell. No investigation followed, but the killings—amid widespread anti-Mexican violence—helped prompt the Texas Legislature's 1919 inquiry that reorganized state law enforcement.
Why it matters
The murders expose the era of impunity for violence against Mexican Americans in South Texas and the reforms that violence eventually forced.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1915, South Texas was a place of deep unease. The Mexican Revolution raged across the border, sending shockwaves of fear through the lower Rio Grande valley, and rumors of raids and uprisings put law enforcement on edge. In that charged atmosphere, anti-Mexican violence became disturbingly common, and Mexican Americans — even long-established, respected members of their communities — could find that the law offered them little protection.
Hidalgo County was ranch country, a landscape of large spreads worked by Tejano families whose roots ran back generations. Many of these families were landowners and leaders, people who held office and shaped local life. Yet in 1915 their standing counted for less than the color of their skin and the language they spoke when armed men decided who was suspect and who was safe.
It was a time when a citizen might do exactly what the law asked of him — report a crime, cooperate with the authorities — and still not come home. That is the shadow hanging over the events this marker records.
People & events
Jesus Bazán and his son-in-law Antonio Longoria were not outsiders or fugitives. They were recognized Tejano community leaders, and Longoria served as a Hidalgo County commissioner — men who by every measure should have had the law firmly on their side. When a horse robbery struck their ranch north of the Rio Grande, they did the responsible thing: on September 27, 1915, they rode to a Texas Ranger camp on the Sam Lane ranch to report it.
Their conversation with Ranger Captain Henry Ransom seemed uneventful, and the two men mounted up to leave. But when they had ridden about 300 yards from the camp, ranch laborers watched Ransom and two civilians climb into a Model T Ford and follow. A passenger leaned out and shot both men in the back. Bazán and Longoria fell from their horses and died at the roadside.
What followed was, if possible, even more chilling than the killing. It was reported that Ransom returned to camp and lay down for a nap, leaving the bodies where they fell. Several days passed before a family friend and neighbor came to bury the two men on the very spot of their deaths. No one — not the Rangers, not local law enforcement — investigated, explained, or even officially reported the murders. Yet the memory did not die. Along with many other acts of violence, the killings helped drive the Texas Legislature's 1919 investigation into law enforcement, after which many agencies were reorganized.
Its place in the American story
The murders of Bazán and Longoria lay bare a period in American history when justice was distributed unevenly along the color line, and when the people charged with upholding the law could break it with impunity. Two respected citizens were killed for no cause the record can justify, and the silence that followed — no inquiry, no charges, no accounting — spoke as loudly as the gunshots.
This is part of a larger and long-underexamined chapter of the nation's past: the era of violence against Mexican Americans in the borderlands, in which an unknown number of people were killed and their deaths simply erased from the official record. The story survived not because institutions preserved it, but because families and communities carried it forward through oral tradition, keeping the memory alive when no document would.
That the killings eventually fed into a formal state investigation shows how even suppressed injustices can slowly force change. The 1919 inquiry did not undo what happened, but it marked a beginning — a public acknowledgment that law enforcement itself needed reform, and a step toward the accountability that had been so completely absent on that roadside in 1915.
If you visit
This is a place of quiet reckoning near the small community of Linn, and it rewards a thoughtful pause. As you read, hold onto one detail: these were men who went to the authorities for help, and were killed as they rode home. Let that turn the ordinary landscape around you into something more sobering.
The country here is South Texas ranchland — wide, working, and easy to pass through without a second glance. But the marker asks you to see it differently: to imagine two men on horseback in 1915, riding a familiar road, and a Model T following behind. History rarely feels this close to the ground.
If you are traveling the Rio Grande valley, this stop pairs naturally with the region's deeper story of Tejano families who have lived and led here for generations. Standing at this spot, you are remembering not only how two leaders died, but how their community refused to let their names be forgotten — and how that stubborn memory eventually helped push a state toward reform.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Jesus Bazán
- · Antonio Longoria
- · Henry Ransom
Themes & tags
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