Los Ojuelos

The springs did not simply dry up; a town drank them. In 1922 William Sterling and John Long organized Mirando City's first water company, dug wells at Los Ojuelos and laid a pipeline to a 500-barrel tank and the town's first water meters. Heavy pumping dropped the water table, and the springs failed. The village they drained had been a hacienda of some 400 Mexican settlers by 1860. The railroad bypassed it a few miles north in 1881, its post office closed in 1917, and Mirando City's children attended its school into the 1940s.

What the plaque says

Los Ojuelos For thousands of years, Los Ojuelos (The Springs) were a source of the precious south Texas commodity of water. Eugenio Gutiérrez received a Spanish land grant in 1810 that included the springs, but attempts to settle here by Eugenio and his son, Isidro, were blocked by conflicts with Comanches. In 1850, a Texas Ranger outpost was set up under the leadership of John Salmon "Rip" Ford to regulate the trade road between Laredo and the port at Corpus Christi, and the Rangers' presence enabled José María Guerra, a grandson of Eugenio Gutiérrez, to permanently settle at the site. During the 1860s, Guerra built several caliche structures, including a chapel and a small irrigation system, now among the best preserved Spanish-Mexican ranch architecture in the region. The springs drew travelers to the village from the 1870s until the 1940s. The indigenous peyote cactus, which had widespread ritualistic and medicinal use among American Indians, was the most lucrative crop for the settlers. In the 1920s, a Texas Ranger outpost near Los Ojuelos dealt with tequileros (liquor smugglers) crossing from Mexico. The discovery of oil greatly reduced the peyote trade due to overharvesting and clearing of peyote fields for drilling. Native Americans still purchase from licensed dealers every February peyote harvested from area ranches. The springs dried up following the development of Mirando City and oil and gas drilling, and the site was virtually abandoned in the 1930s. Oil and gas drilling continues to be an important economic activity in the Los Ojuelos area. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Casa Blanca International State Park — 29 mi
  A 1,680-acre reservoir on Chacón Creek at Laredo's eastern edge, a city lake run as a state park since 1991, with bass fishing, camping and a long human history.
• San Ygnacio Historic District — 37 mi
  A Rio Grande village of sandstone houses on land granted in 1750, home to the Treviño-Uribe Rancho, a fortified family compound begun in 1830 and a National Historic Landmark.

More markers nearby

• Oliver Winfield Killam — 2.3 mi
• Bruni — 9.8 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Hebbronville — 20 mi
• Jim Hogg County — 21 mi