Dac Crossley's Western Blog

Building the Ranch

Ed Lasater had quite a problem. He owed Grandma King $ 200,000. And in 1899 the King Ranch was rapidly acquiring land. Grandma would rather have Ed’s land than his money.

In the Great Drought Year of 1893 ranchers large and small lost most of their cattle. Ed Lasater was one of them. He ran cattle on a large scale and suffered a huge loss. But Ed had something most didn’t -- credit; obtained through his father’s mercantile business. Ed bought land from distressed ranchers, latino and anglo alike.

He needed real money to pay off Grandma King. Lasater persuaded the English brokerage firm, Francis Smith, to invest in his ranch. He expanded it to 360,000 acres in south Texas. He convinced the Southern Pacific railroad to build a line down from San Antonio to his ranch. Lasiter built what was said to be the largest dairy herd in the world. He attracted settlers by offering them subdivided ranchland by the railroad. Lasater’s headquarters became the little town of Falfurrias.

When I was a boy living in Kingsville (home of the King Ranch), Falfurrias was only some 40 miles away but you couldn’t get there. Not by auto. Not until the State of Texas built what we called the “new highway.” I remember the first sight of Falfurrias’s citrus groves and date palms.

The name “Falfurrias” itself is obscure. Perhaps a Lipan word meaning “desert flower?” Or does it refer to an old shepherd who lived there? Falfurrias was the final home of a famous curandero, Don Pedro de Jaramillo, a beloved faith healer. I used him as a model for the healer Don Pedro in Escape from the Alamo.

I’m grateful to David Montejano’s history, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1896. And of course, the Handbook of Texas Online. Always.

Dac Crossley
February 22, 2013.
Happy Birthday, George W.

“Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” – Washington.

The Woman in Blue

Near Albuquerque, New Mexico, on a hot July day in 1629, a group of Jumano Indians presented themselves at the convent of Isleta. They came in search of religious instruction. The Indians already had fundamental grasp of Christianity. Who had taught them? The Lady in Blue, they said.

María Coronel took her vows in a Franciscan order in Spain and assumed the name of María de Jesús de Agreda. She donned an outer cloak of coarse blue over her traditional brown habit. María had a large number of out-of-body experiences in which she visited a distant land. Franciscan authorities thought she was describing New Mexico and west Texas. She said she appeared to the natives, told them of Christianity, and ordered them to seek religious instruction.

Later, on an expedition to west Texas, Fray Juan de Salas met a tribe of Indians who told him of the Woman in Blue. She had spoken to them of an upcoming visit by missionaries. They asked Fray Juan for baptism and religious instruction.

Fray Alonso de Benavides traveled from Mexico to Spain to visit María in Agreda. She acknowledged that she was the Lady in Blue. She described the Indians and the southwest environs she had seen. Maria said her last visit was in 1631, but the Lady in Blue reappeared as late as 1690. Rumors of a Lady in Blue surfaced in 1840 in the Sabine river valley, during a malaria outbreak. And again in World War II. Read more about Maria de Jesús de Agreda in The Handbook of Texas Online.

I am a scientist. Each and every day I marvel at the things I do not understand, at phenomena for which I have no explanation.

Dac Crossley
July 2, 2013
Happy birthday to Bob G. Look for the Groundhog’s shadow.

“Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood.” – George Santayana.