Name: Eagle Pass, Texas
Address: Eagle Pass, TX

The Eagle That Isn't an Eagle RoadyGoat

Here is a twist worth knowing as you pass through Eagle Pass. Those Mexican eagles the town was named for? A lot of the time, they are not eagles at all. Down here in South Texas, the bird people call the Mexican eagle is really the crested caracara. It has a black cap, a bare orange-red face, and long yellow legs, and it belongs to the falcon family, not the eagle family. And here is the fun part. Unlike an eagle, which drops out of the sky to grab prey, the caracara likes to walk. It struts around on the ground on those long legs, scratching in the dirt for insects and lizards, flipping over debris, even digging into turtle nests. It also follows the vultures. When a caracara sees turkey vultures circling something dead, it barges in to grab the best pieces. Some people believe the eagle on the Mexican coat of arms, the one perched on a cactus with a snake in its beak, was originally this very bird, the caracara, before it got redrawn as a true eagle. So the town is named for an eagle that struts, scavenges, and might just be Mexico's real national symbol in disguise.

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Sharper Than You'll Ever See RoadyGoat

A town named Eagle Pass ought to make you wonder just how good an eagle's eyes really are. The answer is almost hard to believe. A bald eagle sees something like four to five times sharper than a person with perfect vision. Where you would see a blurry shape, the eagle sees the detail. A golden eagle can spot a rabbit moving across the ground from up to two miles away. How? It comes down to the back of the eye. On the retina there is a tiny pit called the fovea where the light-catching cells are packed tightest, and an eagle packs them there about five times denser than you do, roughly a million per square millimeter against your two hundred thousand. On top of that, each eagle eye has two of those focus pits instead of one, which helps it lock onto something moving while it dives. Eagles can also see into the ultraviolet range, and researchers have long suspected this helps hunting hawks, because the urine trails small rodents leave behind can glow under ultraviolet light, hinting at where dinner has been running. Not every study agrees on how much they lean on that trick, but the eyes are extraordinary either way. Next time you strain to read a distant sign, remember, an eagle read it a mile back.

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The Pass of the Eagle RoadyGoat

You just rolled into Eagle Pass, and the name is exactly what it sounds like, only older and in Spanish. Long before anybody wrote it in English, this spot on the Rio Grande was called El Paso del Aguila. That means the pass of the eagle. Now, a pass out here does not mean a mountain gap. It means a crossing, a ford, a shallow place where you could get across the river. And the eagle part? The story that the historians actually stand behind is that big birds of prey, the kind the locals called Mexican eagles, were forever lifting off from the wooded grove along the river, right where the Rio Escondido meets the Rio Grande. Travelers watched them rise off the treetops at the crossing, and the name stuck. So this is not some town named after a distant hero. It is named for a living thing you could look up and see, flapping off the branches at the water. When the Anglo settlers arrived and laid out the town, they simply translated it. El Paso del Aguila became Eagle Pass, and it has been that ever since.

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Eagle Pass C.S.A.

1863

A major terminus of the Cotton Road, customhouse and Confederate port of entry into Mexico 1863-65 when Union forces held lower Rio Grande. Cotton was "lifeblood of the South," Texas its lifeline and storehouse west of the Mississippi. Confederate, state and private agents sent thousands of bales through here to be traded for needed guns, ammunition, clothing, blankets, leather goods and medical supplies. One Arkansas train contained more than 100 wagons loaded with cotton. Arriving from San Antonio over a hot, dusty road threatened by Indians and plagued by bandits, the cotton bales were removed from oxcarts and ferried across the river on barges. It was then sent down the River Road to Matamoros or carried inland sometimes as far as Mexico City. Confederate customs took one-half of all private cotton passing through as export duty, and at one time bales spread from the river bank to the edge of town. Fort Duncan and Camp Rabb, Confederate garrisons, afforded protection for the wagon trains and controlled Eagle Pass which had voted 80 to 3 against state secession. Union sympathizers, renegades and sulkers wanting to avoid the conflict of war fled across the Rio Grande attempting to settle in Mexico. Many slipped back into Texas to prey on wagon trains and isolated ranches. One large party of raiders overcome Fort Duncan and went to attack Eagle Pass. Alerted citizens fighting from behind barricades of cotton bales caused them to flee. Erected by the State of Texas 1963. Erected by the State of Texas 1963.

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Maverick County Courthouse

1884

A landmark of the Texas-Mexico border area. Built 1884-85, during term of county Judge Thomas Lamb, on site chosen by citizens' committee, who donated $800 toward purchase of land from R.E. Moffit. Architects: Wahrenberger and Beckman, San Antonio. Contractor: A local builder, William Hausser (1847-1919). Courthouse and a jail were erected at total cost of $20,489. This was site of celebrated Dick Duncan murder trial, 1889. Duncan, accused of killing four members of a San Saba family he was escorting to Mexico, was convicted on evidence gathered by Sheriff W.N. Cooke and Texas Rangers Ira Aten and John R. Hughes. He was sentenced to death by district Judge Winchester Kelso. Duncan appealed to state and federal courts and gained national notoriety, but was hanged in the county jail on September 18, 1891, in the only capital execution ever carried out by Maverick county. Early jail was replaced in 1949. A fine example of Victorian design, with crenelation that suggests a fortress, the courthouse is a border structure with great architectural significance. The clock tower still holds its original E. Howard works and bell. Marker dedicated in September 1971 to commemorate centennial of the organization of Maverick county. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1971

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Shelby's Flag Burial

1865

The last flag to fly over an organized Confederate force was buried in the river near this spot on July 4, 1865, by Gen. Jos. O. Shelby, of Missouri. His un-surrendered cavalry brigade, with arms, cannon and ragged battle flags, marched across Texas three months after Lee's surrender, to enter Mexico in the hope to continue their fight. As a last rite on Texas soil, Shelby assembled his command on the banks of the Rio Grande. At sound of drum and bugle, their flag was folded, weighted and consigned to the waters of the muddy Rio. (1964)

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Cazneau, Jane Maria Eliza McManus

1846

Jane Cazneau [pseuds.: Montgomery, Cora Montgomery, Corrine Montgomery], journalist, author, promoter, and unofficial diplomat, daughter of William Telemachus and Catharina (Coons) McManus, was born in or near Troy, New York, on April 6, 1807. Her father served in the United States Congress from 1825 to 1827. She had three brothers, including Robert O. W. She was apparently raised Lutheran but seems to have become Catholic as a young woman. She married William F. (or Allen B.) Storms in 1825 and had a son but was divorced in 1831. Three years later she was named as Aaron Burr 's mistress in a divorce suit brought against the former United States vice president. Jane McManus Storms (she used both surnames at different times after her divorce) first became active in Texas in 1832, when, to offset declining family fortunes, she investigated opportunities both to resettle her parents and to contract to bring immigrants to Stephen F. Austin 's colonies, in what was then the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas . With her brother Robert she traveled to Texas on the first of nine trips that she made there between 1832 and 1849. She applied to Austin for a headright and a league of coastal land in 1834 and 1835, respectively. An acquaintance recollected that the Mexican government granted her eleven leagues of land for her project but that she lacked the financial means to move her settlers, a group of Germans, from the Texas coast to the designated colony. According to this account, the enterprise broke up at Matagorda, where Jane resided for several months. She may not have lived on her land long enough to get final title and may have forfeited her claim. In a letter posted from New York in 1835, she alluded to owning 1,000 acres in Austin's colony, over and above a league she claimed as a settler. She speculated actively in Texas land from 1834 to 1851. Meanwhile, apparently in 1833, her brother Robert and her parents moved to Matagorda, Texas, although her father returned north before his death in 1835. Land interests and the presence of family gave Jane McManus a vested interest in the future of Texas. When the Texas Revolution erupted, she announced an intent to contribute money and arms to the cause of Texas independence. In the mid-1840s her columns in the New York Sun helped swing United States public opinion in favor of the annexation of the Republic of Texas . She contributed "The Presidents of Texas" to the March 1845 issue of the Democratic Review . That same year her Texas and Her Presidents, With a Glance at Her Climate and Agricultural Capabilities was published in New York. In December 1849 she married Texas entrepreneur and politician William Leslie Cazneau . From 1850 to 1852 she and her new husband lived at Eagle Pass, where he founded a town, opened a trade depot, and investigated mining opportunities. Jane recounted her experiences there in Eagle Pass; or Life on the Border (1852). In this book, in letters to United States Senator William H. Seward, and in columns for the New York Tribune , she charged that Mexicans had been kidnapping Texas residents into peonage in Mexico. Her complaints induced the United States Department of State to broach the issue with the government of Mexico. Eagle Pass also inspired Frederick Law Olmsted to investigate the matter. Olmsted reported in A Journey Through Texas that he found no evidence to corroborate Mrs. Cazneau's accusations. Throughout the antebellum period, she maintained close ties to Mirabeau B. Lamar , second president of the Republic of Texas. Lamar dedicated a volume of poetry to her ( Verse Memorials , 1857). Her will, drafted in 1877, lists 1,000 acres at Eagle Pass and other Texas properties among her assets. Jane Cazneau participated in United States diplomacy almost a century before the first woman was appointed to the United States Foreign Service. During the Mexican War she played an important, if unofficial, part in the unsuccessful secret peace mission of

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Eagle Pass, TX

1849

Eagle Pass, the county seat of Maverick County, is located on the Mexican border at the intersection of U.S. highways 277 and 57, Farm Road 1021, and the Southern Pacific Railroad in the far western part of the county. During the Mexican War a company of Texas Mounted Volunteers under the command of Capt. John A. Veatch established an observation post on the Rio Grande opposite the mouth of the Mexican Río Escondido and beside an old smuggler's trail that crossed the river at this point. The crossing, known as El Paso del Águila, was so named because of frequent flights of Mexican eagles from the wooded grove along the Escondido. Though abandoned by the military at the conclusion of hostilities, the site remained a terminus and crossing point for trappers, frontiersmen, and traders. In 1849 Fort Duncan was established two miles upstream, and its proximity caused a rudimentary settlement to spring up at the crossing below the post. In 1850 San Antonio merchant James Campbell opened a trading post there, and he was soon joined by William Leslie Cazneau and his bride, Jane Cazneau . The village, named after the crossing on the Rio Grande, changed from El Paso del Águila to Eagle Pass as the Anglo presence grew. Concurrent with the growth of Eagle Pass below the fort, emigrants bound for the California gold fields (via Mazatlán) established a staging area above the post known as California Camp. The resulting trade and traffic brought a shift in the settlement of Eagle Pass from the old crossing downstream to its present location above the fort. John Twohig , owner of the land, surveyed and laid out a townsite, which he named Eagle Pass. Friedrich W. C. Groos contracted to haul supplies for the military and brought some seventy Mexican families to settle near the fort. A stage line between Eagle Pass and San Antonio was established in 1851. Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church was constructed in 1852. The early history of Eagle Pass was often characterized by violence. The settlement and adjoining fort were frequently attacked by the Lipan Apache and Comanche Indians. Piedras Negras, established in 1850 across from Eagle Pass in Mexico, became a haven for fugitive slaves, and both banks of the river were infested with outlaws. In 1855 James H. Callahan crossed into Mexico at Eagle Pass with three companies of volunteer rangers in pursuit of Lipans and Kickapoos. After a fight with Mexican forces on the Escondido, he fell back on Piedras Negras and set the village afire as he crossed back into Eagle Pass. During the Civil War , a party of renegades crossed from Piedras Negras and overran the Confederate garrison at Fort Duncan. The townsmen, fighting from behind a barricade of cotton bales, successfully drove off their assailants. Following federal occupation of Brownsville in 1863, Eagle Pass became an important shipment point for Confederate cotton. After the war the last Confederate force in the field, the Shelby expedition , crossed the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass and in a ceremony buried in the river the last flag to fly over Confederate troops. Maverick County, which had been formed from Kinney County in 1856, was finally organized in 1871, and Eagle Pass became the county seat. St. Joseph's Academy, a Catholic school for girls, was opened in 1872. By 1875 the population numbered 1,500 and consisted of Anglo-Americans, Germans, and mostly Mexicans. Their principal occupation was mercantile business and stock raising. Following the war years, bands of cattle thieves and fugitives led by John King Fisher dominated Eagle Pass through the 1870s, notwithstanding the multiple interventions of the Texas Rangers . Law and order was restored with the coming of the railroad in the next decade. In 1882 the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway built from Spofford to Eagle Pass, connecting the isolated community to the rest of the country. Rail construction was continued into Mexico at Piedras Negras as the Mexican Natio

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Griswold, Florence Theodora Terry Shaw Brundage

1894

Florence Theodora Terry Shaw Brundage Griswold, cattle woman, suffragist, and founder of the Pan American Round Table , was born Florence Theodora Terry near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 29, 1875, to Louisa Jane (Lampkin or Lamkin) Terry and Judge William Theodore Terry. The family lived near the Texas-Mexico border on The Pendencia, a ranching settlement located in an area between Eagle Pass and Carrizo Springs, Texas. Florence had three older siblings: Annie Louise, Alice, and William Nathaniel. Growing up on The Pendencia fostered her appreciation of both Mexican and American cultures and the interdependency both groups played in the region. Her compassion for others started when she witnessed poverty and malnourishment in Mexican communities along the border. Florence’s social position as a daughter of a wealthy rancher provided her the means to help those she recognized as poverty-stricken and in need of assistance. On September 5, 1894, Florence Terry married Felix Shaw, a prominent rancher, in Dimmit County, Texas. The couple had four children: Ruth, Adele, Hazel, and Felix Matlow, Jr. The Shaws lived on West Woodlawn Avenue in San Antonio, Texas, during the children’s school year. During 1908 Felix Shaw suffered a heart attack and died, leaving the cattle business—consisting of three ranches—in Florence’s hands. Within two years, she increased her holdings to include more than 100,000 acres and 5,000 cattle between her ranches in Webb and Dimmit counties. These vast holdings earned her the title of the “cattle queen of Southwest Texas.” Her success led President James Callan of the Cattle Raisers Association of Texas to select Florence Shaw as a delegate to the 1909 Trans-Mississippi Congress, and in 1910 she helped bring the congress to San Antonio, which she attended as the only female delegate. Florence Terry Shaw married Spencer Patterson Brundage, who practiced real estate at Hust & Brundage Company, on September 29, 1910, but the couple divorced around three years later. Her second husband brought Florence into contact with international government elites as well as politicians and other wealthy individuals, perhaps through his involvement with the International Club that advertised San Antonio to potential international visitors. She later married insurance executive John Case Griswold on June 8, 1914. Her financial success and social standing allowed Florence to embrace the life of a socialite through her memberships in social clubs such as the Reading Club and the Woman’s Club. She expressed her passion for music by joining the San Antonio Woman’s and Symphony Society and the San Antonio Musical Club. In 1912 the Equal Franchise Society of San Antonio was established. Florence Griswold served as the corresponding secretary for the organization in 1914 and met with U.S. congressmen to discuss the status of the suffrage amendment. Because of the local success of the San Antonio franchise society regarding suffrage, Griswold utilized her connections to other groups, such as the Woman’s Club of San Antonio , to help promote the work for suffrage to various club meetings across the state. Florence Griswold also spoke frequently at social events for various clubs in San Antonio. On May 5, 1915, she participated in San Antonio’s Suffrage School, an organizing effort to arm suffragists at the local level with information and logical arguments to combat anti-suffrage rhetoric. At a Woman’s Club event in November 1915, she gave a speech titled, “The Further Humanizing of Government by the Extension of Suffrage to Women,” in which she argued that placing women’s participation in the democratic process was essential in achieving true progress in society. According to Florence, granting full citizenship rights to women would uplift the entire country. During July 1916 Griswold chaired the convention committee of eight women who presented arguments promoting woman suffrage at the state Democratic convention. Despite opposition

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Eagle Pass, Texas

Music in Eagle Pass

Songs About Eagle Pass

Artists From Eagle Pass

Rivers & Roads in Song near Eagle Pass

History of Eagle Pass

The Eagle That Isn't an Eagle RoadyGoat

Sharper Than You'll Ever See RoadyGoat

The Pass of the Eagle RoadyGoat

Eagle Pass C.S.A.

Maverick County Courthouse

Shelby's Flag Burial

Cazneau, Jane Maria Eliza McManus

Eagle Pass, TX

Griswold, Florence Theodora Terry Shaw Brundage

Everything Near Eagle Pass