Kleberg County

Ben Bolt, TX

José María Valadez, born in Tamaulipas, Mexico, bought land in this part of South Texas in 1864 and, with his wife Josefa, built a ranching enterprise raising cattle and sheep and growing corn and cotton. He named the place La Laguna de las Calaveras—the lagoon of skulls—for skeletal remains found there, thought to belong to Indigenous people lost in a great flood. The cemetery, whose earliest marked grave dates to 1878, has served the Valadez family and the Ben Bolt community for generations.

Banquete, TX

In 1832 the McMullen–McGloin colony of Irish families on the Nueces River was linked to Mexico by the new Matamoros Road, and Mexican officials threw a four-day fiesta of welcome — a "banquete" — that gave the village its name. Settled before the Civil War as a stock-raising and horse-trading center, Banquete became a key stop on the wartime trade route to Mexico. Its cemetery holds Confederate soldiers, pioneer ranching families, and, by tradition, ground once used by the notorious horse trader Sally Scull.

Benavides, TX

After emigrating from northern Mexico in 1866, José Antonio López and his family settled on these South Texas acres, first trapping wild horses and raising sheep, then ranching cattle and farming cotton at Rancho San José. Following his death in 1903, his heirs each gave a portion of their inherited land to fulfill his wish for a family burial ground, in continuous use ever since.

San Diego, TX

Created by the legislature in 1858 and organized in 1879, Duval County took shape as settlers arrived — first from Mexico in the mid-19th century, then Anglo pioneers in the 1860s — building an economy on ranching and farming. The railroad's arrival in the late 1870s swelled population and employment, and the early-1900s discovery of oil, gas, and uranium brought a fresh wave of settlement. Its layered history reflects the blended cultures and resource booms of South Texas.