San Ignacio

While interviewing in Zapata, Texas, last week for a survey, we also spent a morning doing interviews in the nearby town of San Ignacio. It was founded in 1830 by people from nearby Guerrero, Mexico, and has a colorful history.

The older buildings are made of stone to be easier to defend during Comanche raids. One particularly interesting stone building in the second photo has a built in sundial over the main arch.

The town was one of the centers of the short lived Rio Grande Republic in 1839. It was used to stage attacks into Mexico by combatants in the Mexican Revolution 1910-20.

The town now seems to have a disproportionate number of elderly people, like many small rural towns. Almost everybody I found to interview was over 60.