Name: Socorro, Texas
Address: Socorro, TX

The Great Pueblo Revolt Exodus RoadyGoat

The road you're on follows the path of a desperate journey. In August 1680, the Pueblo tribes of northern New Mexico launched a powerful, coordinated revolt against Spanish authorities, driving them out of Santa Fe. As the Spanish retreated south along the Camino Real, they were joined by thousands of Christianized Native Americans, including many from the Piro tribe. Their towns had been destroyed, and they had to abandon everything. This wasn't a planned migration; it was a panicked flight for survival. After a grueling march of hundreds of miles through the desert, the exhausted refugees reached the relative safety of the El Paso del Norte area. Right here, the Piro people established a new settlement, naming it Socorro after the home they lost. This town is a direct result of that violent, transformative event in American history.

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Socorro, TX RoadyGoat

Socorro was established in 1680 by local Manso and Piro Indians fleeing the Pueblo Revolt in northern New Mexico. The probable date of a Mass celebrated in the mission church of Nuestra Señora de la Limpia Concepción del Socorro on October 13, 1680, is regarded as the founding date of the city in Texas, called Socorro, established by the Spaniards and the Piro they brought south with them from New Mexico during the Pueblo Revolt.

Socorro, TX RoadyGoat

Socorro Mission is a Franciscan mission built around 1840 to serve the Native American population in the area. The white adobe mission is a registered Texas historic landmark and one of three missions on the historic Mission Trail. In the mission stands a $300,000 replica of the Pieta, one of only 112 authorized replicas of the Pieta finished by artist Michelangelo in 1499, which can be found in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.

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Rio Vista Farm

1915

El Paso County's second poor farm, known as the El Paso Poor Farm, was established here in 1915. John O'Shea, a wealthy farmer and businessman whose farm was nearby, assumed operation of the farm. His wife, Agnes O'Shea, was in charge of the residents. John O'Shea died in 1929, and the couple's daughter, Helen O'Shea Keleher, came from her home in San Antonio to operate the farm with her mother. The farm was scheduled to be closed in 1929, but, with the troubled times of the Depression era, its population grew. Renamed "Rio Vista Farm," the poor farm hosted a variety of public welfare programs beginning in the 1930s. It operated under the Texas Transient Bureau and later the federal Works Progress Administration. A temporary base for a Civilian Conservation Corps unit in 1936, the farm continued to shelter hundreds of homeless and destitute adults and children. From 1951 to 1964, the farm was used as a reception and processing center for the Bracero program, which brought Mexican laborers to work in the lower valley of El Paso and other agricultural areas in the U.S. New federal welfare programs and state law reduced the population of the poor farm to four, and it was closed in 1964. Unlike other Texas county poor farms, Rio Vista followed a familial rather than institutional model, accepting neglected and abandoned children in addition to the adult indigent population. In later life, Helen O'Shea Keleher cited the fifty years she spent with the more than four thousand orphans and neglected children of the Rio Vista Poor Farm as her proudest accomplishment. 	(2000)

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Lugar Inicial De Mision De Socorro

1680

Despues de 80 anos de ocupacion Espanola, el group indigena Pueblo del Norte de Nuevo Mexico, se alzo en contra de los Espanoles, expulsandolos por un lapso de 12 anos. Los refugiados Espanoles, asi como algunos miembros de otras tribus de Nuevo Mexico, siguieron el Rio Bravo hacia el sureste, llegando al area del Paso del Norte, donde establecieron misiones y nuevos asentamientos. El 13 de Octubre de 1680, fue fundada la Mision Santa Maria de Socorro del Sur por los Franciscanos, aunque el lugar original se desconoce. Para 1684, en este mismo lugar los residentes de Socorro acudian a un santuario temporal. En 1691 se construyo una mision iglesia permanente la cual fue dedicada como Nuestra Senora de la Limpia Concepcion de los Piros de Socorro del Sur. Su construccion era de adobe con vigas sosteniendo el techo. Un pueblo indigena Piro quedaba a aproximadamente 183 metros al noreste de la iglesia y el asentamiento misionero incluia Espanoles y Piros, asi como indigenas Tano y Jemez. Los registros indican que el sitio fue utilizado hasta la decada de 1740, cuando por inundacion fue destruido. El cauce del Rio Bravo cambio al sur hacia Mexico despues de una inundacion en 1829, y la actual Mision de Socorro fue construida en la decada de 1840 a 804.67 metros al noreste de este lugar. Expertos asociados con la Universidad de Texas en El Paso realizaron investigaciones arqueologicas a principios de los 1980. Sus hallazgos incluyen los restos de los muros de la iglesia, los cuales indican que esta fue construida en forma de cruz, asi como algunos otros artefactos que se estima pertenecen a la epoca de 1680. Hoy dia, el sitio inicial de la mision, la mas antigua mision conocida en Texas, es protegida como Patrimonio Arqueologico del Estado. (2004)

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Early Site of Socorro Mission

1680

Following 80 years of Spanish occupation, Pueblo Indians in northern New Mexico revolted in 1680, driving out the Spaniards for a twelve-year period. Spanish refugees, as well as some members of the New Mexico tribes, followed the Rio Grande southeast to the El Paso del Norte area, where they established missions and new settlements. On October 13, 1680, the Franciscans founded Mission Santa Maria de Socorro del Sur. The original site is unknown. By 1684, the Socorro residents were using a temporary church at this location. A permanent mission church was constructed here by 1691 and dedicated as Nuestra Senora de la Limpia Concepcion de los Piros de Socorro del Sur, meaning "Our Lady of Immaculate Conception of the Piros of the Socorro of the South." The church was adobe construction, with vigas, or wooden beams, supporting the roof. A Piro Indian pueblo stood about 600 feet northeast of the church, and the mission settlement was comprised of Spaniards and Piros, as well as Tano and Jemez Indians. Records indicate the site was used until the 1740s, when flooding destroyed the building. After a flood in 1829, the channel of the Rio Grande shifted to the south toward Mexico, and the present Socorro mission was built in the 1840s one half mile northwest of this location. Scholars associated with the University of Texas at El Paso conducted archeological investigations in the early 1980s. Discoveries included the remains of church walls, indicating it was built on a cruciform plan, as well as artifacts dating to as early as the 1680s. Today, the early mission site, the oldest known mission site in Texas, is protected as a State Archeological Landmark. (2004)

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Howard, Charles H.

1877

Charles H. Howard, judge and both instigator and victim of the Salt War of San Elizario , was born on Februrary 3, 1842, in Virginia, the son of William Henry and Sarah Catherine (DuVal) Howard. By 1860 the family had moved to Gonzales County; Charles's sister Susan married William Lewis Davidson there in 1870. Charles served as a private in the Eighth Texas Cavalry , better known as Terry's Texas Rangers, during the Civil War . He settled in Austin, Texas, in 1870 or 1871, then moved to El Paso in 1872. At that time El Paso was a stronghold of Radical Republicanism, but Howard saw an opportunity to establish the Democratic party there, singlehandedly if need be. At least initially, his efforts met with considerable success. He was appointed district attorney in 1873 and allied himself with Louis Cardis and Father Antonio Borrajo, the parish priest of San Elizario, against the Radical Republicans and the "Anti-Salt Ring" led by Albert Jennings Fountain . In February 1873 the three drew up a petition to the state legislature asking for the removal of the El Paso district judge, a political ally of Fountain, and calling Fountain himself, who was then serving in the legislature, "a disgrace to our county and a blemish upon Your Honorable Body." The petition bore more than 350 signatures, and although many were written in the same hand, the legislature decided to take action. The judge was removed in April 1874, and Howard was appointed to replace him. Unfortunately, the alliance between Howard and Cardis was about to rupture. Howard resigned as district judge in 1875 and married Mary Louisa Zimpleman in Austin on December 31 of that year. She died on June 25, 1877. Shortly before her death, her father, George Barnhard Zimpleman, an Austin banker, had moved to El Paso, apparently enlisted in a lucrative scheme by Howard. Howard filed on the salt deposits at the western foot of the Guadalupe Mountains in the name of his father-in-law, thus outraging the salineros , or salt dealers, of the El Paso area, who had regarded the salt deposits as a public commodity. One scholar implies that Howard reneged on a secret deal with Cardis and Borrajo by which the three would split the fees to be charged for collecting salt. Regardless of what actually happened, Howard and Cardis became bitter enemies. Howard assaulted Cardis in Austin and in San Antonio, but Cardis refused to take action. In June 1877, while Howard was en route to survey the salt deposits, he encountered Cardis at Fort Quitman and attacked him again. Meanwhile, he had two salineros arrested for taking salt without paying the required fee. On his way back to El Paso, Howard stopped at Ysleta to talk with the sheriff. An armed group of Mexicans and Mexican Americans seized him there and took him to San Elizario; they might have killed him then and there but for the intercession of Cardis, who wanted to avoid a major conflagration. They made Howard promise to renounce his ownership of the salt deposits and leave El Paso County immediately. The outraged judge went to Mesilla, New Mexico, where he took refuge at the home of his old opponent, Fountain, and wired the governor of Texas that an invasion from Mexico was imminent. Howard blamed Cardis for his humiliation in San Elizario; he returned to El Paso on October 7, 1877, and three days later shot Cardis to death. He was arraigned for the murder on November 17 but was freed on $4,000 bail. On December 12 Howard bravely or foolishly went to San Elizario, intending to make good on his threats to prosecute those who refused to pay the fee for collecting salt. He and his escort of Texas Rangers were surrounded and besieged by an angry mob for several days before Howard gave himself up. On December 17 he was taken out and shot by a firing squad of five men, all from the Mexican side of the river. After they fired, Jesús Telles ran up and attempted to slash Howard's face with a machete. He swung his weapon, but Howard twisted away, and

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Oñate Expedition

1598

Reports of great wealth and natives who would be responsive to conversion in the country to the far north in the 1580s brought responsive action from the monarchy of Philip II of Spain in the form of a royal decree authorizing the pacification and settlement of the new land. It was Philip's conviction that as Hernando Cortes had conquered Mexico in 1521, there existed on the northern frontier of the viceroyalty of New Spain a second rich kingdom-another Mexico. With its conquest and colonization, therefore, Spanish fortunes would be restored after the disastrous defeat of its armada by England in 1588. Thus the viceroy of New Spain was instructed to find a suitable leader to organize an expedition. The contest for the position of governor and captain general of New Mexico was spirited, despite the crown's requirement that the candidate chosen would have to bear most of the costs of the expedition. At length, in 1595 the viceroy awarded the contract to Don Juan de Oñate , a wealthy and distinguished man whose father had made a fortune from the silver mines of Zacatecas, and whose wife was the granddaughter of Hernando Cortes and the great-granddaughter of Montezuma. After many delays in getting the expedition assembled, in January 1598 the colony of 400 men (of whom 130 brought families), eighty-three wagons and carts to carry the baggage and provisions, and more than 7,000 head of stock began the march northward from Santa Barbara along the upper Río Conchos. Ten Franciscans joined later. Unlike previous expeditions, which followed the Conchos to the Rio Grande, this one headed straight across the sand dunes of the Chihuahua desert. A vanguard, after four days without water, reached the Rio Grande on April 20, and six days later the colony was reunited. In celebration of its survival a great feast was held. The expedition then ascended the river a distance, and on April 30, 1598, a significant date in the history of the El Paso Southwest, Oñate in a formal ceremony took official possession of the entire territory drained by the Rio Grande for his monarch, Philip II of Spain. This event, which took place at a site near that of present-day San Elizario, Texas (the river at that time ran several miles north of its present channel), is called La Toma, "the taking possession of"; it laid the foundation for more than two centuries of Spanish rule in the American Southwest. Ascending the river, the expedition crossed the river to the east side on May 4, at a site just west of present downtown El Paso. Oñate called this operation "El Paso del Río del Norte," an early use of the name El Paso. Near the upper reaches of the river he established his headquarters, founded a church, and formally founded the province of New Mexico. During the next few years Oñate sent out exploring parties in all directions, but the results were extremely disappointing-New Mexico was a distinct contrast to the Mexico that Hernando Cortes conquered. Everywhere the picture was the same-a large Indian population living in adobe houses, some of which were two stories high, but there was no gold, no silver, only a few fertile farms, and tenacious Indian resistance in many areas. Since the new land had failed to measure up to the high hopes and expectations of the colonists, quarreling and dissension increased, food was soon scarce, and desertions mounted. Charges were brought against the governor, accusing him of misconduct and mismanagement, of ignoring the complaints of the colonists, and of misinforming the crown about conditions in New Mexico. At length, in 1607 Oñate resigned his command, retired from the scene, and returned to Spain to defend himself against his alleged misdeeds. The Spanish crown, after some hesitation, decided to maintain its foothold in New Mexico, having received word that if it left it would be abandoning 7,000 converts. In 1609 a new governor, Pedro de Peralta, was appointed, and in the following year Santa Fe was founded as the new c

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Socorro, Texas

Music in Socorro

Songs About Socorro

Artists From Socorro

Rivers & Roads in Song near Socorro

History of Socorro

The Great Pueblo Revolt Exodus RoadyGoat

Socorro, TX RoadyGoat

Socorro, TX RoadyGoat

Rio Vista Farm

Lugar Inicial De Mision De Socorro

Early Site of Socorro Mission

Howard, Charles H.

Oñate Expedition

Things to Do in Socorro

Everything Near Socorro