Casa Blanca Land Grant
Banquete, Nueces County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The first spanish land grant awarded in what is now Nueces county was the Casa Blanca land grant. Granted in 1798 by the spanish government to Juan Jose de la Garza Montemayor (1765-1816) and his three sons, Juan Manuel, Jose Perfecto, and Jose Agustin, it was located between Penitas Creek and the Nueces River. Originally called Penitas Grant, it consisted of 70,848 acres, or sixteen sitios of land. The Montemayor family established a ranch near Penitas Creek. Since it was near the site of Casa Blanca Fort, it became known as Casa Blanca Ranch. Under continual attack by indians, the ranch remained in the Montemayor family until 1849, when it was purchased by William Mann (1818-1855). Mann later divided the lands and sold portions to area farmers and ranchers. Following his death, his heirs sold 22,000 acres to Richard King. Eventually, oil was discovered in Nueces County, and the owners of the former Casa Blanca Land Grant became oil producers. Today, the principal industries on the Casa Blanca lands are oil and gas production, farming, and ranching. Lands included in the grant now lie in the counties of Nueces (44,042 acres) and Jim Wells (26,806 acres).
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Granted by the Spanish crown in 1798 to Juan Jose de la Garza Montemayor and his three sons, the Casa Blanca grant was the first Spanish land grant in what is now Nueces County, a vast tract of some 70,848 acres between Penitas Creek and the Nueces River. The Montemayor family built a ranch that held the land through decades of frontier conflict until it was sold in 1849, and part later passed to cattle baron Richard King. Oil was eventually discovered on the former grant, and its lands now span two counties.
Why it matters
The grant marks the deep Spanish-Mexican roots of South Texas ranching, a landholding tradition that predates the United States and still shapes the region's oil, cattle, and farming economy.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Juan Jose de la Garza Montemayor
- · William Mann
- · Richard King
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Nicholas Bluntzer
Banquete, TX
Born in 1835 in Alsace, Nicholas Bluntzer came to Texas at nine with the Alsatian families led by empresario Henri Castro. He rode as a scout on Robert E. Lee's 1856–57 expedition against the Comanche, fought for the Confederacy at Palmito Ranch—the war's last battle—in 1865, and afterward became an influential South Texas rancher and cotton grower, lending his name to the settlement of Bluntzer.
San Patricio de Hibernia
San Patricio, TX
Founded in 1830 by empresarios John McMullen and James McGloin as the capital of their Irish colony, San Patricio de Hibernia—named for the patron saint of Ireland—stood as a lonely frontier outpost when the Texas Revolution erupted. On February 27, 1836, General José Urrea's division of Santa Anna's army surprised and overwhelmed a small Texan party under Johnson, killing several and marching the survivors to Matamoros as prisoners. After the Texan victory at San Jacinto the town was destroyed and its people scattered, and this 1936 monument names its early settlers, soldiers, and notable descendants.
San Patricio County
San Patricio, TX
This ground carries three centuries of change, from Spanish exploration beginning in 1519 through Mexican independence in 1821. In 1828 empresarios James McGloin and John McMullen won a Mexican land grant and brought Irish colonists to settle it, and the county—named for St. Patrick—was created in 1836 and organized the next year. Its southern edge, the Nueces River, became a flashpoint in the run-up to the Mexican-American War, crossed by Zachary Taylor's army as it marched south.
Courthouses of San Patricio County
San Patricio, TX
Since the 1830s, eight buildings have served as the seat of government for San Patricio County, beginning with a 'Log Courthouse' raised for the San Patricio colony before the county itself was created in 1837. A stone courthouse begun before the Civil War was never finished—neighbors even carried off its stones for their chimneys—and later courthouses came and went by fire and by the 1894 move of the county seat to Sinton. In 1986 a replica of the 1872 courthouse was built on its original site from the old commissioners' specifications.