Name: Robstown, Texas
Address: Robstown, TX

Robstown, TX RoadyGoat

Robstown. It's a small town, but it has a big history – especially when you consider the people who've called it home. You might not expect it driving through, but championship blood runs deep in this South Texas soil.

Calallen, TX RoadyGoat

Calallen, Texas, owes its name to a man who likely never imagined his name would grace road signs and high school football jerseys. Back in the early 20th century, the area was primarily sprawling ranchland. Mifflin Kenedy, a major South Texas rancher, employed a man named John Callan as his foreman. When the community started to coalesce around a stagecoach stop along what would become Highway 77, the locals decided to name their budding town in Callan's honor. So, they added the 'en' to make it Calallen. The name itself, then, speaks to Calallen's roots as a ranching community, tied to the land and the people who worked it. It's a humble origin, reflecting the hard-working spirit that still permeates the town today. It’s a place where the legacy of a ranch foreman lives on, woven into the fabric of a community that values its history even as it looks to the future.

5.8 mi away

Calallen, TX RoadyGoat

Calallen is a place where folks still talk about Harvey. It wasn't just the immediate aftermath – the flooded homes near the Nueces River, the downed power lines along 77, the sheer volume of debris piled high on every corner. It was the long tail of recovery, the way the storm seemed to etch a new line in the community's memory. Even now, years later, you see subtle changes. Houses raised higher, new drainage systems being installed, and a heightened awareness every time a tropical system starts brewing in the Gulf. What really stands out is how Harvey reinforced the tight-knit spirit of Calallen. The football field at the high school became a staging ground for volunteers, a place where people from all walks of life worked side-by-side. Folks opened their homes to neighbors, shared generators, and helped muck out houses with a kind of determined grit that felt both heartbreaking and inspiring. It's what defines Calallen, even after the floodwaters receded.

5.8 mi away

Upshaw, Eugene Thurman, Jr. [Gene]

1945

Eugene Thurman Upshaw, Jr., football player and union leader, was born on August 15, 1945, in Robstown, Texas. He was the oldest child of Eugene Upshaw, Sr., an employee of an oil company, and Cora (Riley) Upshaw, a domestic laborer. Gene and his brothers worked in area cotton fields during their childhoods in an effort to raise extra money to assist the family. Upshaw attended Robstown High School, distinguishing himself academically and athletically. Specifically, Upshaw served as the star pitcher on the school's baseball team. Upon graduation from high school, Upshaw, though tempted to start a baseball career, followed his father's wishes that he obtain a college education. Upshaw attended Texas College of Arts and Industries (later Texas A&I University and currently Texas A&M University-Kingsville) and played tackle and center on the college football team under Coach Gil Steinke. Even though Upshaw had only one year of football experience in high school, Coach Steinke, known as one of the first football coaches in Texas to integrate minority players into his teams, saw promise in the young player. During his four years in Kingsville, Upshaw grew to be 6'5" tall and weighed 255 pounds. His size and speed helped him earn National Association of Intercollegiate Athletes (NAIA) All-American status, and he played a part in establishing Texas A&I as a national powerhouse among small universities, with the school winning six NAIA national championships in the decade following Upshaw's graduation. While in college, he also joined Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. On December 30, 1967, he married Jimmye Hill. They had one son, Eugene III, but later divorced. Upshaw graduated from Texas A&I with a B.S. degree in 1968. In 1967 the Oakland Raiders drafted Upshaw in the first round (seventeenth over-all) in the first combined American Football League/National Football League draft. Because of his size and agility, the Raiders' coaching staff felt Upshaw would make an excellent offensive guard. Their intuition proved correct as Upshaw, beginning with the first game of his rookie season, started at left guard for the team in more than 200 straight regular season games. During the 1981 season he missed one game because of injury, before returning to finish the season. The following year he missed the entire season because of injuries, and subsequently chose to retire. Upshaw accumulated numerous accolades as a player. He competed in ten conference championship games and seven Pro Bowls. Upshaw was named AFC Lineman of the Year in 1973, 1974, and 1977, as well as being named NFL Lineman of the Year in 1977. For eight years he served as the Raiders' offensive captain, and he is the only player to have played in three different Super Bowls (II, XI, and XV) in three different decades; the Raiders won Super Bowls XI and XV. Finally, Upshaw was named to the NFL's All-Decade Team for the 1970s, the NFL seventy-fifth anniversary All-Time Team (1994), and in 1987 received induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame-he was the first honoree to have played exclusively as a guard. Off the field, though, Upshaw made his longest lasting mark on the NFL through his tireless efforts for players' rights. From 1970 through 1976 Upshaw served as union representative for the Oakland Raiders. Then in 1980 he became the president of the NFL Players Association. In 1983 he became executive director, a position he held until his death. This role made him the first African American to head a major players union. The union, itself, was in financial trouble when Upshaw took over. Through his work, he turned the union into a major force in American sports labor, earning himself a position on the AFL-CIO executive council in 1985. He played a role in the Players Association strike in 1987. His greatest achievement came with the 1993 agreement between the union and the NFL that brought limited free agency to football and dramatically increased players' salaries. Upshaw mar

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Rabb, Martha (Reagan)

1857

Martha Reagan moved with her parents from Tennessee to Fayette County, Texas where she met and married John Rabb (1825-1872). In 1857, John and Martha moved their family to Nueces County and settled near Banquete, where John pursued cattle ranching under the Bow and Arrow brand. Rabb raised far more cattle than his ranch land could support by running his herds on the open range. He became one of the most successful cattlemen in the area, owning more than 10,000 head of cattle when he died in 1872. When Martha assumed control of the business, she took it in a dramatically different direction. Forseeing the end of the free-range era, she capitalized on the panic and flight caused by violent raids along the Nueces strip and aggressively began to buy land here in 1875. Within a year, she owned more than 43,000 acres, some of which she bought for as little as 37 cents per acre. Enclosed within 40 miles of fence, the Rabb Ranch included this site and stretched from north of Robstown south to Driscoll, and was bordered on the west by the Petronilla and Banquete Creeks and on the east by present-day Callicoate Road (FM 1694). She became known as a "Texas Cattle Queen." (1992)

Historical Marker → · 3.5 mi away

Paul, George H.

1907

George H. Paul, land developer, was born on an Iowa farm in 1877. He worked for the Luce Land Company of Carroll, Iowa, for a number of years selling land in Canada to midwestern farmers. On January 3, 1907, he arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he organized regular Tuesday excursions from Iowa, Nebraska, and Central Texas, beginning on the first Tuesday in March 1907 and lasting through the entire spring and summer. The special trains took people to Hebbronville, Alice, and Agua Dulce. Paul worked out a deal with Robert Driscoll to sell part of the Driscoll Ranch. To promote land sales Paul established the town of Robstown. From Washington, Iowa, his hometown, he brought a contractor and carpenters, who constructed the first commercial building in town, a general store that also served as the community center. Paul arranged for the railroad to transport prospective buyers to Robstown at special rates, and the first trainload arrived in the fall of 1907. In early 1908 the George H. Paul Company had as many as 1,000 agents in Canada, the Gulf region, and the northern United States. The land sold so rapidly that by 1908 all of the land north of the Texas-Mexican Railway had been sold. By 1909 a considerable amount of land south of the railroad had been sold, as well as some lots in Robstown. In 1908 Paul formed a contract with the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company . He bought 56,000 acres in San Patricio County from the company with the understanding that the land would be paid for as it was sold. In 1910 he had a similar contract with John J. Welder for 70,000 acres. He sold the land by employing promotional techniques similar to those used in selling the Driscoll Ranch lands. Paul founded St. Paul, Texas, in 1910. He was married and had one son. He died in severe poverty on August 22, 1965.

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Youngblood, Guadalupe Cruz, Jr.

1970

Guadalupe Cruz Youngblood, Jr., Tejano political activist, public officeholder, and educator, was born to Guadalupe Cruz Youngblood, Sr., and Josefina (de la Paz) Youngblood in Robstown, Nueces County, Texas, on November 2, 1946. Guadalupe Jr. (also known as Lupe) had one brother and three sisters. Youngblood attended public schools in Robstown. In 1961, at fourteen years of age, he was struck by an automobile and critically injured but survived. He graduated from Robstown High School in 1965. Youngblood completed an associate’s degree from Christopher College of Corpus Christi in 1967. In 1969 he graduated from Texas A&I University in Kingsville (now Texas A&M University–Kingsville) with a B.A. degree in sociology and psychiatry. Youngblood was a political activist in the 1960s and 1970s. He became the Texas state chairman of the La Raza Unida Party and taught Mexican American studies at several colleges. Youngblood was involved in the progressive Mexican American student movement in the 1960s and 1970s, along with Jose Angel Gutiérrez, Carlos Guerra , Emilio Zamora, and others. The Raza Unida Party was formed in 1970. Its first statewide convention was held in San Antonio in October 1971. In late 1974 the convention was held in Houston. At first Youngblood was considered a dark-horse candidate, but he became the 1974 convention’s compromise candidate and was elected state chair of the party for a two-year term. He was an active advocate for Mexican Americans . He was a member of VISTA, Texas Rural Legal Aid, the Food Research and Action Center, and he was founder of Familias Unidas in Robstown. After the Texas legislature created the 214th Judicial District in Nueces County, Youngblood, as chair of La Raza Unida, sent a telegram to Governor Dolph Briscoe in December 1974 and requested that a Chicano be appointed judge of that district court. The writer of an Associated Press news article about that letter evidently assumed that Youngblood was a female, probably because his first name suggested that. When Southwestern Bell Telephone Company requested a rate hike from its customers in San Antonio, Guadalupe wrote letters to the city’s mayor and each of the city council members and implored them to deny the rate increase. Youngblood worked as a paralegal in the Texas Rural Legal Aid office in Kingsville. Later he served as chief clerk in Robstown in the office of a justice of the peace, Lorenzo Rojas, for sixteen years. In 1998 he and three other candidates ran in the Democratic primary for justice of the peace (in the same office where he had worked so many years as chief clerk, Precinct No. 5). He won a primary runoff against Robert Gonzalez. No Republican ran for the office, and Youngblood won the general election and served for the two-year term. During the campaign, Guadalupe said, “I would like to establish a computer network with the other offices such as the sheriff’s and the police department. When someone comes in our office right now, we have no way of helping them find information on a lost parking ticket, but we also don’t know if someone has a warrant out on their arrest.” In the next Democratic primary, Youngblood was defeated by Gonzalez. On August 19, 1988, Guadalupe Youngblood married Eva R. Montoya; she was sixteen years his junior. He was a member of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Robstown. He had a daughter, Marisa Youngblood, and a stepson, Jeremiah Rivera. Youngblood was hospitalized with heart problems shortly after New Year’s Day of 2002 and placed in intensive care. He died there on February 4, 2002, at fifty-five years of age. His funeral Mass was said at St Anthony’s Catholic Church on February 7, 2002. His body was cremated. In an oral history interview in 1998, Judge Lorenzo Rojas praised Guadalupe Youngblood’s steadfast commitment to service: …When I came here, there were two secretaries working here for the incumbent. And the day that I showed up. . .they didn't show up for work. So, I called Y

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George H. Paul Building Site

1903

Robstown began in 1903 at the merger point of the Texas-Mexican and the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroads. The town grew rapidly after the arrival of land developer George H. Paul. He organized the George H. Paul Land Co., acquired about 300,000 acres of land from nearby ranches, and subdivided the property into cotton farms. Special trains transported Paul's land agents to the East and Midwest to interest prospective buyers in the area. The hub of activities in the new community was the Paul Building, a two story red brick structure erected at this location in 1908. Its first floor was occupied by the Howard and Jacoby General Store. The multi-purpose building also housed Robstown's first school and a community room where church services were held. A windmill and well behind the structure provided the town's water supply. The Guaranty State Bank, organized in 1913 by William H. ("Bill") Daimwood, occupied the Paul Building in 1924. Renamed the State National Bank of Robstown in 1925, it was noted for its stability in the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Paul Building was demolished in 1972, after the structure became unsafe, and a new bank facility was erected at the site. (1976)

Historical Marker →

Hotel Brendle

1914

The community of Robstown developed around the traffic generated by the junction of the Texas-Mexican and the St. Louis, Brownsville, & Mexico railroads. In 1914 C.C. Brendle and V.V. Elick purchased land at this site for the purpose of constructing a hotel as close as possible to the railroad station. Completed the same year, the hotel Brendle opened with 36 rooms and became a center of activity for the community. For many years the hotel provided space for traveling salesmen to display their goods. C.C. Brendle (1859-1929) was a local gin operator, developer, and area farmer who came to Robstown in 1908. His partner in the hotel, V.V. Elick, also was a partner in his gin interests. The hotel passed out of the hands of the Brendle Family during the great depression and later was owned by the Sons of Hermann, a German fraternal organization. Interesting architectural features of the three-story hotel include a brick parapet, a red tile roof supported on brackets, and a semi-circular arch over the doorway. The Hotel Brendle stands as a reminder of Robstown's early commercial growth. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1984

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Robstown, Texas

Music in Robstown

Songs About Robstown

Artists From Robstown

Rivers & Roads in Song near Robstown

History of Robstown

Robstown, TX RoadyGoat

Calallen, TX RoadyGoat

Calallen, TX RoadyGoat

Upshaw, Eugene Thurman, Jr. [Gene]

Rabb, Martha (Reagan)

Paul, George H.

Youngblood, Guadalupe Cruz, Jr.

George H. Paul Building Site

Hotel Brendle

Things to Do in Robstown

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