James Henry Dishman

Combes, the town beside Dishman's ranch, has two stories about its name. One says it honors the Combes Ranch, run by Charles B. Combes, a Kentuckian who arrived in the early 1900s. The other says it honors a Brownsville surgeon, and the Handbook records that the debate is unsettled. The town grew after the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway built through in 1904. A post office opened in January 1911, closed in 1920, and reopened in 1926. By 1929 the town had about 500 people, and it was incorporated in the 1950s.

What the plaque says

James Henry Dishman (February 22, 1858-July 30, 1934) James Henry Dishman was forced at the age of six to assume a man's role after his father's death in the Civil War in 1864. A native of Cherokee County in East Texas, he eventually moved to Kaufman County and developed a successful ranching operation. He sold his ranch in 1892 and headed to the South Texas Gulf Coast in search of lucrative ranching opportunities. In 1893 James purchased a remote and undeveloped section of school land in this area of northern Cameron County. He built a homestead and by 1895 had establised a working ranch. He increased his land holdings and within a short time gained a reputation for industriousness and uncommon generosity. He was gravely wounded by a cattle rustler in 1897. Aided by brothers Dr. Fred and Dr. Joe Combes of Brownsville, he was able to recover in six months. In 1904 Dishman donated acreage for the railroad right-of-way that led to the creation of the town of Combes. In 1924 he donated over 5 acres to the Combes community as a site for a Baptist church and cemetery. In 1928 he donated money and this site for the construction of an elementary school which when completed in 1930 was named for him. Dishman was buried beside his mother at Harlingen City Cemetery. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 23 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.
• Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  A coastal refuge set up in 1946 for wintering redhead ducks, with 417 bird species recorded and, by the Fish and Wildlife Service's account, the largest ocelot population in the United States.
• Museum of South Texas History — 27 mi
  Edinburg's regional museum, begun in 1967 in the 1910 Hidalgo County jail and now telling the Rio Grande's story from fossils and native peoples through steamboats to the 20th century.
• Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — 28 mi
  About 2,000 acres of river forest on the Rio Grande's north bank, the surviving part of Benigno Leal's 1834 land grant, kept as a refuge since 1943 where two bird migration routes meet.

More markers nearby

• City of Harlingen — 4.9 mi
• Sebastian — 7.2 mi
• Stagecoach to the Rio Grande, C.S.A. — 8.3 mi
• Town of La Feria — 8.5 mi