Penitas

The story on the plaque is local tradition, and the Handbook of Texas says so. The record starts with ranches. After 1850 those of Rómulo Martínez and Jesús Chapa Cantú filled the site. The Hidalgo and San Miguel extension of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway, later called the Sam Fordyce Branch, reached the town in 1904. The Sisters of Mercy opened a school in 1907, and a post office followed in 1909. Peñitas is Spanish for small stones. By 1976 a colonia of nearly a thousand people had formed here.

What the plaque says

Penitas Possibly one of oldest towns in the United States. Established, according to tradition, in mid-1520s. Founders were a priest and five other Spaniards of the unsuccessful Panfilo de Narvaez Expedition into Mexico in 1520. Narvaez was sent to arrest or kill Hernando Cortez, conqueror of Mexico, who was accused of disloyalty to the king. Cortez, however, defeated Narvaez in battle, imprisoned him, and took most of Narvaez's army for his own. After Narvaez was released from prison (1521), he and the remnant of his men set out for Florida. But Father Zamora and five officers gave up further plans to travel with Narvaez, and settled at Penitas. The refugees were befriended by Indians living in huts and dugout-type homes in the vicinity. The Spaniards erected stone houses with whitewashed walls. Father Zamora brought the Catholic faith to the Indians, also teaching them weaving and better farming. The Indians taught cookery to their guests. Cabeza de Vaca, aide in a later Narvaez expedition, is famous for having written of his shipwreck and wanderings in Texas from 1528 to 1535. The founders of Penitas are recalled best by their descendants, some of whom still live in this area. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park — 0.2 mi
  A 587-acre stand of Rio Grande woodland near Mission, once part of a Spanish porción, given to the state by the Bentsen family in 1944 and now headquarters of the World Birding Center.
• La Lomita Chapel — 3.6 mi
  A small sandstone chapel on the Rio Grande levee, built by Oblate missionaries in 1865 and rebuilt at this site in 1899, the landmark that gave the city of Mission its name.
• Museum of South Texas History — 16 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 — 17 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

• Juan Davis Bradburn — 3.6 mi
• Leo Najo — 4.0 mi
• Texas Citrus Fiesta — 4.6 mi
• Nellie Leo Schunior School — 7.7 mi