Heritage, Volume 7, Number 3, Summer 1989 Page: 19
31 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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FIRST LOCOMOTIVE CROSSING TEMPORARY BRIDGE OVER RIO GRANDE AT LAREDO.
Laredosfreely distributed. When the Bourbon bureaucrats
in the late 18th century invaded
Spanish authority in Spain, they sought to
enforce their control over the polities of
New Spain, but Laredo responded with an
underground economy that rivals today's
border contraband. Revolution in 1810
wracked the economy of northern New
Spain, and Laredo suffered from profiteering.
So the attorney general of Laredo
enacted rules that merchants had to sell
commodities for three days on the streets at
retail rates before they could legally offer
them at wholesale. While the Spanish government
set prices of basic goods to protect
the poor, they also offered 10,000 pesos for
the apprehension of Father Hidalgo, raised
a draft among males from fifteen to sixty,
and threatened death to all who assisted
the rebels. In spite of these measures, the
officers of the crown could not repress the
uprising against their authority, especiallyin the towns of the northern frontier where
the populace was fiercely independent of
external command.
While Laredo benefitted from its strategic
commercial setting between the Texians
and the new Republic of Mexico, it
wasn't until 1848 that it was drawn from its
isolated orbit into the maws of manifest
destiny. War between Mexico and the U.S.
led to its arbitrary division by a new international
border. Rather than taming the
frontier nature of the town, the split jurisdiction
promoted refuges for bandits and
Comanches and provided a new focus for
the underground economy that had flourished
since the Bourbon era.
Los dos Laredos gained a new twist when
Anglo authorities were imported along
with a garrison of troops from the north
to manage the new territory along the Rio
Grande. By the end of the century, when a
Frenchman named Martfn ran the town,the Botas and the Huaraches waged a civil war
for local autonomy. City politics in Laredo
haven't changed much since, and families like
the Martfns still produce mayors and city officials
from time to time. With shreds from the
Spanish municipio embedded in its political
process, and the wealth from ranching and oil
and commerce along with contraband, the
players in city politics are embroiled in a zesty
caldo of contending and blending interests. But
the game is played out on a heady level. As one
authority noted of the commercial success of
Laredo, "the development of merchant wealth
has generally stood in inverse proportion to the
general economic development of society."
Furthermore, the battle for political and
economic preeminence in Laredo is fought in
its old historical district, where the calloused
disregard for the city's poor extends to an indifference
to the city's heritage. Laredo's biggest
economic boost was the installation of an air
force base in the 1950s, and its biggest economic
catastrophe was when the base was shut down
in the 1970s. But that period saw old monuments
and neighborhoods moved aside for new
development. After an agonizing adjustment to
the loss of the military payroll, that trend has
continued in recent years. A city that once
boasted twenty plazas now has been reduced to
three, and those are precariously perched on the
edge of expansion.
Laredo is an appealing and stimulating city.
Tourists come from all over the country to enjoy
its open ambiance, its mix of culture, its markets,
and its nightlife on both sides of the
border. But the essence of the town has
always been its historic character. Nowadays,
tourists pour into Laredo from the
north on IH-35 along a strip of fast-food
joints and shopping centers and gas stations.
The only monument left there is the
1950s vintage Bordertown Drive-in Theatre
with its big bull mural that stands as a
silent sentinel of the past. The Mall del
Norte is a fine place, rivalling malls in San
Antonio and Austin, but it's a far cry from
the plazas of the 18th century that molded
the social and commercial and political life
of Laredo, where the pulse and the character
of the community could be felt in the
early evening paseo around the plaza,
much as it can still be seen in Mexican
cities to the south. Young men revolve one
direction, young women the other, while
grandparents and parents lounge on the
benches and lawns sharing bufnuelos and
refrescos with the younger children.
HERITAGE * SUMMER 1989 19
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, Volume 7, Number 3, Summer 1989, periodical, Summer 1989; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45431/m1/19/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.