Site of Los Olmos
Falfurrias, Brooks County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1.5 miles northeast) The first permanent settlement in Brooks County, Los Olmos was located at the southwest corner of El Paisano Land Grant, given to Ramon de la Garza about 1830 by the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Situated near the main route to the Rio Grande, the village served a region settled originally by ranchers from northern Mexico. By 1880, it had a post office, stores, and a school, which operated until 1945. The schoolhouse was the site of services conducted by traveling priests. As the town of Falfurrias grew, Los Olmos began to decline. Descendants of its founders still reside in this area. (1976)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Los Olmos was the first permanent settlement in what became Brooks County, planted at the southwest corner of the El Paisano land grant given to Ramon de la Garza by the Mexican state of Tamaulipas around 1830. Sitting near the main road to the Rio Grande, it drew ranching families from northern Mexico and by 1880 had a post office, stores, and a school. As the nearby town of Falfurrias rose, Los Olmos faded—though descendants of its founders still live in the area.
Why it matters
Los Olmos records the deep Mexican ranching roots of South Texas, a settlement pattern that shaped the region long before it became part of the United States.
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Related people
- · Ramon de la Garza
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Town of Flowella
Falfurrias, TX
Founded in 1909 on old Spanish grant and later King Ranch land, Flowella was laid out as the trade center for a planned farm colony and named for a flowing well at its heart. A hotel, store, post office, and school briefly served about a hundred residents. But hard seasons closed the businesses one by one, and by the late 1920s the town had faded, leaving none of its original buildings.
Brooks County
Falfurrias, TX
Brooks County was pieced together from Hidalgo, Starr, and Zapata counties and created in March 1911, organizing later that year with Falfurrias as its seat. It honors James Abijah Brooks, a captain of the Texas Rangers for nearly a quarter century who also served in the legislature and, from the county's founding, as its county judge.
Chamberlain Cemetery
Kingsville, TX
At the turn of the 20th century, King Ranch owner Henrietta King and neighboring ranchers backed the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway to move cattle to market, and the new railroad town of Kingsville rose around its headquarters. In 1908 a cemetery association bought forty acres and opened Chamberlain Cemetery the next year, naming it for Henrietta's father, pioneer minister Hiram Chamberlain. It became the resting place of Henrietta and Captain King, railroad visionary Uriah Lott, and other builders of South Texas.
La Mota de Olmos Cemetery
Benavides, TX
This cemetery began in 1894 on land that was once part of Rancho La Mota de Olmos—'the cluster of elms'—settled by Francisco Bazán Villarreal, a native of Nuevo León who received the surrounding land grant in the 1870s. Many of those buried here were born on the ranch itself, and the graves include Bazán and Don Pedro Bazán, a well-known curandero, or folk healer. Still active today, the roughly 250-foot-square ground holds more than a hundred graves.