Starr County
Rio Grande City, Starr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Formed from Nueces County; created February 10, 1848; organized August 7, 1848. Named for Dr. James Harper Starr 1809-1890; pioneer Texas surgeon and Indian fighter, located at Nacogdoches in 1837; Secretary of the Treasury of the Republic of Texas 1839-1840; Assistant Postmaster General of the Confederacy. Rio Grande City, the county seat.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Starr County was carved from Nueces County and created on February 10, 1848 — just as the Mexican-American War closed and the Rio Grande became the international boundary. It was named for Dr. James Harper Starr, a pioneer surgeon who served as Secretary of the Treasury of the Republic of Texas and later as an official of the Confederacy. Rio Grande City became and remains the county seat.
Why it matters
The county's 1848 birth marks the moment the United States drew its border at the Rio Grande, reorganizing a Spanish-and-Mexican borderland into American counties.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Dr. James Harper Starr
Related events
- · Creation of Starr County (1848)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Old Rancho Davis
Rio Grande City, TX
Kentucky-born Henry Clay Davis came to Texas in the late 1830s and served with Zachary Taylor's army during the Mexican-American War in 1846. Marrying into the prominent Garza family of the lower Rio Grande, he established a home around which Rio Grande City grew, fed by steamboat trade up from Brownsville and by the founding of nearby Ringgold Barracks in 1848. The town became the seat of Starr County.
Site of Cortina Battle
Rio Grande City, TX
On the eve of the Civil War, the lower Rio Grande Valley was thrown into turmoil by partisan leader Juan Cortina. On December 27, 1859, his band was surprised at daybreak here by U.S. Army troops under Major Heintzelman, joined by Texas Rangers, and scattered in defeat, with Cortina fleeing across the river. Regarrisoning of nearby Ringgold Barracks calmed the border, but raids flared again during and after the war until Cortina's power finally waned.
Jose De Escandon
Rio Grande City, TX
In the mid-eighteenth century, the Spanish colonizer José de Escandón explored the country from Tampico to the San Antonio River and planted some two dozen towns, many of which survive today. He founded missions, opened roads, and settled families across what is now the lower Rio Grande borderlands, earning from the Spanish crown the title Conde de la Sierra Gorda.
Howard L. Bass Home
Rio Grande City, TX
Built in 1877 from lumber salvaged off a sunken steamboat, with mesquite-block floors and handmade brick, this Rio Grande City house was the home and business of John Peter Kelsey, a New Yorker who came to the border in 1848 to become a Starr County judge and major landowner. Its very timbers speak to the steamboat commerce that once moved goods up the Rio Grande. Later owners carried the property into the twentieth century, and it took the name of Howard L. Bass, who acquired it in 1954.