Don Pedrito Jaramillo Shrine

This is a living place of prayer, so visit it as one. Pedro Jaramillo, known as Don Pedrito, was born in 1829 near Guadalajara, Jalisco, and came to Texas in 1881, when he was past fifty. He settled at Los Olmos Ranch in what is now Brooks County, in an adobe hut near Los Olmos Creek, on land his friend Antonio Hinojosa Pérez gave him.

He healed with water, baths and herbs, and he credited the cures to faith, not to himself. Texas Monthly quotes him telling patients, "Your faith has made you whole." He charged nothing and gave away most of what he was handed. He rode or walked to ranches, and by one account about 200 letters asking for help reached him each week. He bought the bell for the Falfurrias parish church in 1903. He died on July 3, 1907, and his admirers stripped his hut within days. He is not a canonized saint, but he is honored across South Texas as a folk saint.

The shrine is a small concrete-block building at the family cemetery on FM 1418, near the roadside state marker of 1971. Visitors kneel at the altar, light candles, and pin handwritten prayers in English and Spanish to boards. Some ask for healing, others for work or peace in the family. Come quietly, dress respectfully, and ask before photographing anyone at prayer.