A Union Army of 200 troops attempted to assault the village and burn 5000 bales of hay, and this endeavor resulted in a massive battle at the stream during the American Civil War. Zacate Creek is located 10 miles south of the municipal boundaries. In 1852, Laredo was re-incorporated as a city. Fort McIntosh was built by the military in 1849. This request was denied, and most people crossed the river into Mexican territory to establish Nuevo Laredo. In the town, residents voted to urge the American military authorities in control of the area to restore the town to Mexico. Following the war, the region was given to the United States by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. During the Mexican-American War, the Texas Rangers seized the town in 1846. Laredo served as the capital of the autonomous Republic of the Rio Grande in 1840, which had been created in opposition to Antonio López de Santa Anna and had been forcefully restored to Mexico. The colony was part of a broader scheme to extend civilization to what is now northern Mexico and South Texas. Captain Sánchez served in the Spanish colonial army. Sanchez picked the name Laredo as a tribute to Saint Augustine of Hippo and as a mix of Laredo and Cantabria, a town on Spain's northern coast. Travel Map the Road to Nowhere through Southern Texas Map of the Road to Nowhere through Southern Texas.Don Tomás Sánchez founded Laredo, formerly known as Villa San Agustin de Laredo, on May 15, 1755.
Main St., 956/487-5101, $81 and up) is a Creole-style inn designed by Parisian architects in 1893, with construction completed in 1899. Many of the town’s buildings have been quietly restored, and the town is so quiet you can sometimes hear roosters crowing across the river in the Mexican town of Ciudad Miguel Alemán, where the narrow sandstone streets, old churches, and plazas haven’t changed in centuries.įarther south along US-83 comes Rio Grande City, where among the historic buildings downtown the La Borde House (601 E.
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The surviving 19th-century Spanish- and Creole-style architecture in Roma, 40 mi (64 km) southeast of Zapata, hasn’t changed much since it inspired director Elia Kazan to use the town as a film location for the 1952 movie Viva Zapata! starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn. The construction from 1950 to 1954 of Falcon International Reservoir altered the look and feel of the riverside landscape, but there are still a few places that evoke the past. South of Laredo, US-83 passes through one of the fastest-growing and most Hispanic areas in the United States, following a route parallel to the Rio Grande. It now houses a museum (956/727-0977, Tues.-Sat., $2) containing a collection of memorabilia from the separatist movement of 1840.īuilt as a high school in 1917, the place to stay to soak up Laredo’s substantial-if faded-character is the plaza’s stately La Posada Hotel (956/722-1701, $120 and up), which is also home to the Zaragoza Grill and a more expensive Latin American restaurant, the Tack Room. Numerous historic buildings surround the plaza, including a small stone building next to La Posada Hotel that served as the capitol of the short-lived Republic of the Rio Grande. The I-35 corridor feels as anonymous and fast-paced as anywhere in the United States, but the center of town still holds on to its historic personality.Īt the heart of downtown Laredo, a block north of the Rio Grande, is the San Agustín de Laredo Historic District, site of the original 1755 Spanish settlement of Villa de San Agustín. With a population that is about 95 percent Hispanic, the city is growing rapidly (more than doubling in the past 20 years) due to its position as the largest international trade center along the U.S.-Mexico border. 261,639) is surrounded by some of the oldest ranch lands in the United States.
Founded as the first nonmissionary, nonmilitary Spanish settlement in North America in 1755, Laredo (pop.
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