Catarina
is on U.S. Highway 83 ten miles southeast of Asherton in southern Dimmit
County. The name has been associated with the area since at least 1778; legend
holds that it is the name of a Mexican woman killed by Indians on or near the
site. The town was established after Asher Richardson, a rancher, decided to
build a railway link from Artesia Wells to his planned town of Asherton. In
return for an easement through the nearby Taft-Catarina Ranch, Richardson
agreed to allow the ranch to establish a railroad depot, with cattle-shipping
pens, on his railroad. By 1910, when the Asherton and Gulf Railway began
operations, these cattle pens had become the nucleus of a small community built
by Joseph F. Green,
the manager of the ranch. Green moved the ranch headquarters to the depot and
added a bunkhouse, a commissary, a hotel, a post office, and a small
schoolhouse. By 1915 the little town had twenty-five residents and had become
famous in the area for the Taft House, an expensive mansion that Charles Taft,
the owner of the ranch, supposedly built with oversized bathtubs to accommodate
his brother, President William Howard Taft. Catarina Farms, a development
project, built roads, sidewalks, and a waterworks and an impressive new hotel
and installed electric power and a telephone exchange. Agent Charles Ladd
imported entire orchards of fruit-laden citrus trees to impress prospective
investors with the area's agricultural possibilities. By 1929 Catarina had
between 1,000 and 2,500 residents, a bank, at least two groceries, a lumber
company, and a bakery. Short supplies of water, marketing problems, and the Great Depression
hurt the town. By 1931 the population had dropped to 592, and many of its
businesses had been forced to close. In 1943, Catarina had 403 residents and
seven businesses; in 1956 it had 380 residents and three businesses. By 1969
some of the town's most picturesque old buildings had been abandoned, and the
population was 160. In 1990 the population was forty-five, and in 2000 it had
grown to 135.
Now, if you’re looking for something a little juicier, read on . . .
Catarina, Tx
Texas Tales by Mike Cox
If you’re
looking for a ghost, it figures you’d go to a ghost town to find one.
But when Terry Cole came to the Dimmit County town
of Catarina from McAllen several years ago, he sought employment
as a construction worker, not an encounter with the supernatural. Even so, he
ended up with both.
One spring night in 1999, Cole and an acquaintance sat watching
television in the second-floor common area of the old Catarina Hotel, built in
1926 during Catarina’s heyday.
“I happened to look away from the TV and saw a ball
of smoke moving down the hall,” Cole recalls. “I just went back to watching TV.
But the guy with me said, ‘Did you see that? What are you going to do if a
ghost comes in your room?’”
Not being afraid of ghosts, Cole replied: “My
room’s got two beds. The ghost can have the other one.” Other guests have
reported seeing a headless apparition wandering the hotel, but the smoky blob
is all Cole ever saw.
“I’d hear creaking noises at night,” he said, “but
it’s an old building. In the heat of the day it expands and it cools off at
night.”
Ghost stories make for interesting folklore, but Catarina has a much more tangible history,
grounded in the development of transportation.
Long
before Catarina got started, the Camino Real, the old
Spanish road from Mexico to Louisiana, cut through the area.
The fate of one
person traveling Texas’ first “interstate” probably provided the area its name.
According to Cole, Catarina — her last name long since lost to history — was a
young Spanish woman killed by Indians in the vicinity of the future town. A stream
not far from where she died became known as Catarina Creek. As the Handbook of
Texas reports, historians have found the name connected to the area as far back
as 1778.
The name also could have been in honor of Santa Catarina de Siena --
canonized in 1461 -- the patron saint of everything from fire prevention to
temptation. Or, speculating further, the young woman killed by Indians could
have been named for the popular saint.
No matter how Catarina got its name, more than 200 years later
the Camino Real made a logical route for the railroad to follow when Asher
Richardson bankrolled a new line connecting Carrizo Springs with the International and Great
Northern Railroad at Artesia Wells. The proposed route cut through the
Taft-Catarina Ranch, which gave Richardson right of way in exchange for a depot
from which the ranch could ship cattle.
When the railroad began running in
1910, ranch foreman Joseph F. Green moved the pasture company’s headquarters to
a site near the depot and adjoining cattle pens and a small town soon
developed. When the ranch management expanded into irrigated farming, a
development project called Catarina Farms brought all the modern amenities,
including the Catarina Hotel.
As long as the water pumped from the nearby artesian wells, Catarina thrived. But the wells played out and Catarina began to dry up, literally and
figuratively. The Depression didn’t make things any better. The hotel, a
stopping place on U.S. Highway 83, saw its last guests in the early 1950s.
Catarina, Texas, a wide spot in the road with a lot of history.
Later . . .
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