Site of Uribeño.
Zapata vicinity, Zapata County, Texas
Marker Inscription
One of five Zapata County settlements inundated by the waters of Falcon Reservoir in the 1950s, Uribeño traces its origin to 1803, when Porción 41 was granted to José Nicolás Clemente Gutiérrez de Lara (1770-1805) for his service in the Spanish army. As required by the terms of the grant, José Nicolás Clemente worked to establish a ranch on his property against the odds of Indian raids, scorching heat, drought and periodic river flooding. He returned to his hometown of Revilla in Mexico just prior to his death, leaving behind his widow, María Josefa Martínez, and six children. Development of the ranch on Porción 41 was delayed until after Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821. After the war, some of José Nicolás Clemente's sons returned to the ranch; by 1826 all of his children had married and moved to the ranch, which was named Uribeño. By 1860, the population of the Uribeño community, which took its name from the Gutiérrez ranch, was 152. Located about two miles west of this site, it was a small, poor community, comprised primarily of farmers, herdsmen and laborers. Although no permanent church existed, visiting priests periodically held worship services. A cemetery, a schoolhouse and a small grocery store existed to serve the residents. When the United States government built Falcon Dam, Uribeño met the same fate as its neighboring towns, but its residents chose not to move the community to another site before the waters flooded the town. Only the cemetery was relocated to serve as a physical reminder of this early border community. (2001)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Uribeño traces its origin to 1803, when a stretch of the Rio Grande known as Porción 41 was granted to José Nicolás Clemente Gutiérrez de Lara for his service in the Spanish army. Despite Indian raids, drought, and flooding, his family established a ranch, and after Mexico won independence in 1821 the growing community took the family's name, numbering 152 people by 1860 with a cemetery, schoolhouse, and store. In the 1950s the federal government's Falcon Dam flooded Uribeño and four neighboring settlements; only its cemetery was relocated to mark where the town had stood.
Why it matters
Uribeño is one of the borderland communities erased by Falcon Reservoir, a reminder of the Spanish-Mexican ranching settlements sacrificed to mid-20th-century water projects.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Long before this was Texas, it was the northern edge of a Spanish colonial project along the Rio Grande. In the mid-1700s, Spain set out to settle both banks of the lower river, laying out towns and dividing the riverfront into long, narrow land grants. Each grant, a porcion, was drawn as a thin ribbon reaching back from the water, so that as many families as possible could share access to the river's precious frontage.
Porcion 41 was one of those ribbons of land, granted in 1803 to a soldier for his service to the Spanish crown. This was frontier country in the fullest sense: brutally hot, prone to drought one season and river flooding the next, and exposed to raids. Establishing a working ranch here was less an investment than a test of endurance.
The political ground shifted underfoot, too. Spain still ruled when the grant was made, but within a generation Mexico would win its independence, in 1821, and the whole borderland would change hands more than once in the century that followed. Uribeno's story unfolds against that long, restless backdrop.
People & events
The grant went to Jose Nicolas Clemente Gutierrez de Lara, who took on the land's terms: he was required to work it, to plant a ranch against every hardship the river country could throw at him. He tried, but the odds were long, and he returned to his hometown of Revilla, in Mexico, shortly before his death in 1805, leaving a widow, Maria Josefa Martinez, and six children.
The ranch itself waited. Real development stalled until after Mexico's independence, and then the family came back to claim what their father had begun. By 1826 all six children had married and settled on the land, and the ranch took the family's name in the form the community would carry: Uribeno.
From that root grew a modest village. By 1860 it numbered 152 people, mostly farmers, herdsmen, and laborers, living a couple of miles from this spot. There was no permanent church, only visiting priests who held services when they could, but there was a cemetery, a schoolhouse, and a small grocery, the plain infrastructure of a real community. Then, in the 1950s, the federal government built Falcon Dam, and the rising reservoir doomed the town. Strikingly, its residents chose not to relocate the community before the water came. Only the cemetery was moved, carried to higher ground to stand as the town's last witness.
Its place in the American story
Uribeno belongs to a chapter of American history that big narratives often skip: the Spanish and Mexican settlement of the land that became the United States. The people here were putting down roots, marrying, burying their dead, and teaching their children generations before this was American soil, and their story is as much a part of the national fabric as any eastern colony.
It is also a case study in the cost of progress. Mid-twentieth-century America built great dams to control floods, generate power, and store water, and those projects genuinely served millions. But reservoirs drown whatever lies in the valley behind them, and again and again that meant erasing small, older communities whose residents had the least power to object. Uribeno is one name on that long, largely unwritten list.
The residents' decision not to move the town gives the marker its ache. Sometimes a community, faced with the end, does not try to reassemble itself somewhere new; it simply lets go. Relocating only the cemetery says something profound about what people chose to save when they could not save everything, the dead, and the memory.
If you visit
Come here knowing that the town you are reading about is gone, resting beneath the waters of Falcon Reservoir about two miles from the marker. This is a place you visit with your imagination as much as your eyes, and that is exactly what makes it moving.
Stand at the marker and look toward the water. Somewhere under that surface are the outlines of a village that lived for more than a century, its fields and its little store and the ground where a church service was held whenever a priest could ride through. The reservoir is peaceful and wide, and the peace is part of the story.
Seek out the relocated cemetery if you can, because it is the one piece of Uribeno you can still stand beside. A community that chose not to rebuild still made sure its dead were carried to safety, and paying your respects there is the truest way to honor a border town that gave up its ground but not its name.
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
- · José Nicolás Clemente Gutiérrez de Lara
Related events
- · Construction of Falcon Dam
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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