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.

Robstown, TX RoadyGoat

Robstown sits on land built by the Nueces River over millennia. It's flat, coastal plain, the kind where you can see the horizon in every direction. The soil is dark and rich, alluvial deposits, perfect for cotton and sorghum, which is what brought people here in the first place. This part of Texas wasn’t carved by mountains or dramatic canyons; it was patiently molded by water, a slow, steady process that mirrored the lives of the early settlers. The land dictates the culture. There’s a certain resilience you find in folks who make a living coaxing crops out of the earth, battling the unpredictable South Texas weather. The flatness also means the wind has free rein, a constant presence that shapes the trees and the temperament of the people. You learn to appreciate the shade, the small variations in the landscape. The Nueces River, though not a raging torrent, is a lifeline. It's a source of irrigation, a place for recreation, and a constant reminder of the force that created this place, shaping both the land and the people who call it home.

Robstown, TX RoadyGoat

Robstown, Texas, sits right in the heart of Nueces County, a place shaped by cotton fields and the railroad. It started as a small agricultural hub, a place where farmers could bring their harvest for shipping. You can almost picture the dusty streets lined with wagons overflowing with cotton bales, all headed to the depot. That vital link to the outside world, the railroad, truly put Robstown on the map, connecting it to larger markets and opportunities. The town grew steadily, its fortunes tied to the land. There were booms and busts, of course, like most agricultural communities experienced. The ebb and flow of commodity prices dictated the rhythm of life. But Robstown persevered, always rooted in its agricultural heritage. Over time, the landscape changed, with more diverse crops and industries taking hold. It evolved from a simple cotton-shipping point to a more multifaceted community, but that down-to-earth spirit, that connection to the land, has always remained. You can still feel it in the air, a sense of resilience and a quiet pride in its history.

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)

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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)

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St. John Nepomucene Catholic Church

1924

In early twentieth century Robstown, German and Moravian families migrated to this area to farm. Czech-speaking Catholics could not find any places of worship that could provide spiritual services in their native language. Father Joseph Klobouk served as the pastor of St. Boniface Parish in Corpus Christi, but for many years worship services were held in a local home or in nearby communities. A former Methodist church building on East Avenue B and Second Street was purchased in 1924, finally giving Slavic Catholics their own place of worship. It was named after St. John Nepomucene, a popular saint among Czech-speaking Catholics. It became a mission of St. Boniface Parish. Various priests served over the next decade, until 1934 when newly-ordained Father George Steven Scecina was appointed the first resident pastor of St. John’s as well as pastor of St. Frances of Rome Mission Parish in nearby Agua Dulce (where he served from 1934 to 1961). Father Scecina would remain pastor of St. John’s for the next 49 years. A new church was built and furnished on this site in 1937 for $17,504.39, with a rectory added the next year. Father Scecina had a convent and school built near the church in 1945, staffed by nuns from Indiana. By 1951, St. John’s taught classes from elementary school to high school, graduating its first senior class of thirteen students in 1955. More than 320 students graduated from high school before it closed its doors in 1970. Grades one through eight continued to be taught at the original site until 1986. Father Scecina died in 1988. St. John’s church continues to serve the Robstown area.

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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

Robstown, TX RoadyGoat

Robstown, TX RoadyGoat

Upshaw, Eugene Thurman, Jr. [Gene]

Rabb, Martha (Reagan)

Paul, George H.

Youngblood, Guadalupe Cruz, Jr.

George H. Paul Building Site

St. John Nepomucene Catholic Church

Things to Do in Robstown

Everything Near Robstown