Postcards from the Río Bravo Border: Picturing the Place, Placing the Picture, 1900s–1950s 9780292752818

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P OSTCARDS FROM THE RÍO BR AVO BORDER

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P U B L I S H E D I N C O O P E R AT I O N W I T H T H E W I L L I A M P. C L E M E N T S C E N T E R F O R S O U T H W E S T S T U D I E S, S O U T H E R N M E T H O D I S T U N I V E R S I T Y

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DANIEL D. ARREOLA

FROM THE

RÍO BRAVO BORDER PICTURING THE PLACE, PLACING THE PICTURE, 1900s– 1950s

U N I V E R S I TY OF TE X AS P R E SS

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AUSTI N

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Copyright © 2013 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2013 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/rp-form ∞ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper).

library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Arreola, Daniel D. (Daniel David), 1950– Postcards from the Río Bravo border : picturing the place, placing the picture, 1900s–1950s / by Daniel D. Arreola. — First edition. p cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-292-75280-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Cities and towns—Mexico, North—History—20th century. 2. Urbanization—Mexico, North—History—20th century. 3. Mexico, North—History—20th century—Pictorial works. 4. Postcards—Mexico, North—History—20th century. 5. Matamoros (Tamaulipas, Mexico)—History—20th century. 6. Reynosa (Mexico)—History—20th century. 7. Nuevo Laredo (Mexico)—History—20th century. 8. Piedras Negras (Mexico)—History—20th century. 9. Ciudad Acuña (Mexico)—History—20th century. I. William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, issuing body. II. Title. ht127.7.a774 2013 307.760972'10904—dc23                               2012044413 doi: 10.7560/752801

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FOR SUSAN

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CONTENTS

list of illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii preface and acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 I . P L AC E S A N D P OSTCARDS

1. Río Bravo Border Towns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2. Postcards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 I I . P OSTCA RD V I E WS

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Gateways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Streets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Plazas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Attractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Businesses and Landmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Everyday Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

I I I . S I GHT I N TO S I T E

9. View of the Place, Place of the View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 appendix: Postcard Writings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TA BLES 1.1 2.1

Río Bravo Border Town Populations, 1900–1960. 19 Río Bravo Border Town Photo Postcard Photographers, 1900s–1950s. 49

FIGU RES 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19

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Río Bravo border towns map. 14 Burned building, Nuevo Laredo, 1910s. 18 The Moctezuma Bar, Matamoros, 1920s. 19 Cathedral, Matamoros, before and after the hurricane, 1933. 21 Guerrero Street, Nuevo Laredo, after the 1922 flood, 1920s. 21 “Magic Valley and Old Mexico,” advertisement, 1940s–1950s. 23 Matamoros map, 1940s. 24 Aerial view of Matamoros, 1940s. 27 Panoramic view of Matamoros, 1950s. 27 Reynosa map, 1950s. 28 Bird’s-eye view of Reynosa, 1920s. 29 International Bridge, Reynosa, 1930s. 30 Nuevo Laredo map, 1940s. 31 Aerial View, railroad depot, Nuevo Laredo, 1928. 33 Panorama of Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. 33 Piedras Negras map, 1940s. 34 Panoramic view of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, 1910s. 34 Panoramic view of Piedras Negras, 1950s. 36 Villa Acuña map, 1940s. 37

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1.20 1.21 2.1 2.2a 2.2b 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6a 2.6b 2.7a 2.7b 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 3.25 3.26

General view of Villa Acuña, 1920s. 39 Panoramic view of Ciudad Acuña, 1950s. 39 Gruss aus postcard of Ciudad Juárez, 1900s. 45 Streets of Mexico exhibition, Pan American Exposition 1901, recto. 46 Streets of Mexico exhibition, Pan American Exposition 1901, verso. 46 Esquivel Photo Service and Garcia’s Studio advertisements, 1949. 50 Nuevo Laredo multiview advertising postcard, 1950s. 50 Juan C. Villarreal, fotógrafo, ink stamp. 51 Bull fight at Villa Acuña, 1940s, recto. 54 Genuine photograph post card, R. L. Warren Studio, verso. 54 Government Palace, Piedras Negras, 1940s, recto. 54 Photograph card, W. M. Cline Co., verso. 54 México Fotográfico postcard, advertisement, 1940s. 57 México Fotográfico photographic supplies, advertisement, 1920s. 57 México Fotográfico álbum de postales, advertisement, 1920s. 57 Tinted photographic postcard, Matamoros, 1950s. 57 Abrego Fot., postcard, Matamoros, 1920s. 59 Runyon No. 189, International Bridge, Matamoros, 1910s. 61 Street views, Matamoros, 1920s. 61 Mercado, Piedras Negras, 1930s. 62 Mexican fruit stand, Matamoros, 1900s. 63 Acuña–Del Rio wooden bridge, 1920s. 66 Piedras Negras–Eagle Pass wooden bridge, 1910s. 68 International Bridge, Piedras Negras–Eagle Pass, 1910s. 68 International Bridge, Reynosa-Hildago, traffic, 1920s. 68 International Bridge, Reynosa-Hildago, suspension construction, 1920s. 68 Citizens Bridge, Del Rio, Texas, 1920s. 68 International Bridge Gate, Piedras Negras, 1930s. 71 Garita, Juárez, Reynosa, 1950s. 71 Ferry from Brownsville to Santa Cruz, 1910s. 73 Ferry from Santa Cruz to Brownsville, 1910s. 73 Immigration office, Matamoros, 1930s. 74 Santa Cruz station, Matamoros, 1920s. 74 Mule car, Matamoros, 1907. 77 Matamoros y Santa Cruz mule car, Santa Cruz, 1910s. 77 Santa Cruz streetcar barn, Santa Cruz, 1920s. 78 Matamoros y Santa Cruz streetcar, Santa Cruz, 1920s. 78 Motorized tranvía, Matamoros y Santa Cruz, 1920s. 81 Motorized tranvía, Matamoros, 1920s. 81 Crossing the International Bridge, Laredo–Nuevo Laredo, 1900s. 82 Cyclone damage to the International Bridge, Nuevo Laredo, 1900s. 82 International Bridge, Laredo–Nuevo Laredo, 1900s. 85 International Bridge, Nuevo Laredo, January 1, 1914. 85 Temporary crossing for the new Los Arcos International Bridge, Nuevo Laredo, 1920s. 86 Bridge and immigration office, Nuevo Laredo, 1930s. 86 Pan American Highway Bridge Dedication, Nuevo Laredo, 1935. 89 Traffic jam on the International Bridge, Laredo, July 4, 1941. 89

List of Illustrations

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3.27 3.28 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9

“Laredo, Gateway to Mexico,” gateway promotion, 1944. 90 New International Bridge and garita, Laredo–Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. 93 Street Scene, Matamoros, 1900s. 94 Calle Hidalgo, Villa Acuña, 1920s. 96 Calle Sexta, Matamoros, 1940s. 96 Calle Porfirio [Díaz], Reynosa, 1950s. 99 Calle Zaragoza, intersecting with Calle Juárez, Piedras Negras, 1910s. 100 Calle Zaragoza, looking north toward Calle Fuente, Piedras Negras, 1910s. 100 Hidalgo Monument, Piedras Negras, 1920s. 103 Calle Zaragoza, Piedras Negras, 1920s. 103 Calle Zaragoza, looking north between Calle Guerrero and Calle Allende, Piedras Negras, 1910s. 104 4.10 Calle Zaragoza, looking north between Calle Guerrero and Calle Rayon, Piedras Negras, 1910s. 104 4.11 Calle Zaragoza, looking north, Piedras Negras, 1920s. 107 4.12 Calle Zaragoza, looking north, Piedras Negras, 1950s. 107 4.13 Guerrero Street, Nuevo Laredo, ca. 1915. 108 4.14 Avenida Guerrero, Nuevo Laredo, 1920s. 108 4.15 Avenida Guerrero, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. 111 4.16 Avenida Guerrero, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. 111 4.17 Important businesses, Avenida Guerrero, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. 112 4.18 Tourist shops, Avenida Guerrero, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. 112 4.19 Avenida Guerrero, Longoria Block, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. 115 4.20 Avenida Guerrero, looking north, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. 115 5.1 Plaza Juárez, Ciudad Porfirio Díaz, 1900s. 116 5.2 Plaza Hidalgo, Matamoros, 1910s. 119 5.3 Plaza Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, 1920s. 119 5.4 Plaza Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. 120 5.5 Plaza Hidalgo, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. 120 5.6 Plaza Hidalgo, South side along Calle Morelos, Reynosa, 1920s. 122 5.7 Partial view of Plaza Hidalgo, Reynosa, 1940s. 122 5.8 Plaza Hidalgo fiesta, Reynosa, 1920s. 125 5.9 Cathedral and Calle Morelos, Reynosa, July 10, 1926. 125 5.10 Plaza Hidalgo and the Municipal Palace, Reynosa, 1920s. 126 5.11 Plaza Hidalgo, looking north, Reynosa, 1920s. 126 5.12 Juárez Monument and kiosco, Reynosa, 1920s. 129 5.13 Juárez Monument and kiosco, Reynosa, 1940s. 129 5.14 Plaza Hidalgo, Reynosa, 1940s. 130 5.15 Plaza Hidalgo, Reynosa, 1950s. 130 5.16 Plaza Benjamín Canales, Villa Acuña, 1910s. 133 5.17 Presidencia Municipal, Villa Acuña, 1920s. 133 5.18 Church and school, main plaza, Villa Acuña, 1920s. 134 5.19 Guadalupe church and bust of Manuel Acuña, Ciudad Acuña, 1950s. 134 5.20 Plaza Benjamín Canales, Villa Acuña, 1940s. 137 5.21 Plaza panorama, Ciudad Acuña, 1950s. 137 6.1 El Parián, Nuevo Laredo, 1900s. 138 6.2 Mercado Belisario Domínguez/Maclovio Herrera, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. 141 Mercado Maclovio Herrera, rebuilt, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. 141 6.3

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6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 6.20 6.21 6.22 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 7.16 7.17 7.18 7.19 7.20 7.21 7.22 7.23 7.24 7.25 7.26 7.27 7.28 7.29

Interior, Mercado Maclovio Herrera, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. 141 Railroad station, Piedras Negras, 1920s. 142 Railroad station, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. 142 Plaza de toros, Matamoros, 1910s. 142 Plaza de toros, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. 142 Plaza de mercado, Matamoros, 1930s. 145 Mercado Juárez, Matamoros, 1940s. 145 The mercado, Matamoros, 1907. 146 The meat market, Matamoros, 1900s. 146 Mercado Juárez, Matamoros, 1920s. 149 Interior of the mercado, Matamoros, 1950s. 149 Bullfight at Sabinas Arena, Villa Acuña, 1928. 150 Villa Acuña and La Macarena map postcard, Villa Acuña, 1950s. 150 La Macarena Café Bar, Villa Acuña, 1940s. 153 La Macarena Arena, Villa Acuña, 1940s. 153 La Macarena Patio, Villa Acuña, 1940s. 154 St. Nicholas Fiesta at Macarena Arena, Villa Acuña, 1940s. 154 “Conchita Cintrón, Famous Woman Bullfighter,” Villa Acuña, 1940s. 157 Patricia McCormick gored in bullfight, Villa Acuña, September 5, 1954. 157 The American Bar, Matamoros, 1920s. 161 The Cadillac Bar, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. 161 Shamrock Bar, Nuevo Laredo, 1938. 161 Bohemian Club Drive-In, Nuevo Laredo, 1920s. 162 The Bohemian Club, Nuevo Laredo, 1930s. 162 Mrs. Crosby’s Café, Villa Acuña, 1920s. 165 Mrs. Crosby’s Orchestra, Villa Acuña, 1920s. 165 Mrs. Crosby’s Hotel and Café, Villa Acuña, 1940s. 165 Washington Bar, Villa Acuña, 1940s. 166 Moctezuma Café, Matamoros, 1920s. 166 Jardín Bella Vista, Piedras Negras, 1930s. 166 Joe’s Place, Reynosa, 1950s. 169 Advertising card, Joe’s Place, Reynosa, 1940s. 169 Sam’s Place, Reynosa, 1940s. 169 La Cucaracha, Reynosa, 1940s. 169 Mexican Curiosities, Piedras Negras, 1920s. 170 Mexican Curios Shop, Reynosa, 1940s. 170 Pete’s Curio Store, Reynosa, 1930s. 170 Curio stamps. 171 Indian basket makers, De Alba’s Mexican Curios, Reynosa, 1940s. 173 Power’s Curios, Perfumes, and Antiques, Nuevo Laredo, 1930s. 173 Calendario Azteca, Ciudad Acuña, 1950s. 174 Manhattan Curio Shop, Matamoros, 1940s. 174 Casa Lalo’s Curios, Reynosa, 1950s. 177 Lalo’s Gift Shop advertisement, 1956. 177 The Casamata, Matamoros, 1920s. 178 Customs House, Matamoros, 1900s. 181 Customs House, Piedras Negras, 1930s. 181 Station XER, Villa Acuña, 1930s. 182

List of Illustrations

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7.30 7.31 7.32 7.33 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 8.12 8.13 8.14 8.15 8.16 8.17 8.18 8.19 8.20 8.21 8.22 8.23 8.24 8.25 8.26 8.27 8.28 8.29

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Station XEPN, Piedras Negras, 1930s. 182 The old cemetery, Reynosa, 1920s. 185 Gate entrance to the old cemetery, Matamoros, 1900s. 185 Crypts in the old cemetery, Matamoros, 1910s. 185 Making tortillas for sale, Matamoros, 1900s. 186 Women washing, Matamoros, 1900s. 189 “Like Beasts of Burden,” Matamoros, 1900s. 189 Goat herders, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. 190 The milkman, Villa Acuña, 1930s. 190 A Mexican ox cart, Matamoros, 1910s. 190 A water carrier, Matamoros, 1910s. 193 Collecting water from the river, Reynosa, 1920s. 193 Filling water barrels, Matamoros, 1910s. 193 Water delivery to businesses, Matamoros, 1910s. 193 Shop selling blankets, ropes, and baskets, Matamoros, 1900s. 194 Shop selling produce, baskets, and clay pots, Matamoros, 1900s. 194 Upper-income homes on Calle Morelos, Ciudad Piedras Negras, 1910s. 197 Subdivision Colonia Jardín, Matamoros, 1950s. 197 The wool market, Ciudad Porfirio Díaz, 1900s. 198 Railroad shops, Ciudad Porfirio Díaz, 1900s. 198 Oil derrick, Reynosa, 1950s. 199 Teatro de la Reforma (Teatro Cine Anteo), Matamoros, 1930s. 201 Teatro Cine América, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. 201 The Girls’ School, Matamoros, 1900s. 202 The Madero School, Piedras Negras, 1910s. 202 A park, Nuevo Laredo, 1930s. 205 Restaurant Mexicano, Matamoros, 1910s. 205 Mexican family, Matamoros, 1900s. 206 Home garden, Matamoros, 1920s. 206 Parade on Calle Sexta, Matamoros, 1920s. 208 Centennial celebration, Matamoros, 1920s. 209 Hotel Central, Piedras Negras, 1920s. 210 U.S. Customs inspection, Edinburg, Texas, 1900s. 210

Postcards from the Río Bravo Border

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Postcard, later sister, poor sister of the letter, providential refuge of narrow imaginations, of hesitant syntax, of shaky spelling, resource of people in a hurry, normal means of expression of a world which moves fast enough, picturesque documentation at a low price, popularizer; postcard, friend of the traveler, of the lover of folklore, of the local historian. . . . — ROBERT BURNAUD 1

postcards entered my professional life in 1993. In that year, I attended my first postcard collectibles show in Los Angeles. The world of professional postcard dealers and collectors proved a curious and irresistible enterprise. The Los Angeles show, which was considered a premier West Coast event, convened in Pasadena, had about three dozen dealers set up, selling what must have been over a million postcards of every imaginable subject and type, organized on tables in three separate rooms of the Elks Hall located on the corner of Colorado and Orange Boulevards across from the Norton Simon Museum. Avid collectors were stacked up two and sometimes three deep in front of dealer tables sorting through long boxes of postcards or coveted special albums that housed the better stock. Postcard boxes were most often systematically ordered in two general divisions: by topical categories and by U.S. states subdivided by towns. Topical collectors would approach a dealer table and ask, “Got a category for Route 66 roadside?” or “Can I see your better real photo?” or “What have you got in aviation?” There were many, many collectors seeking cards of American towns, one of the most common collecting categories. Few seemed interested in foreign postcards that were typically boxed at an end table or a lonely back table, away from the frenzy of the popular front tables. Not uncommonly, a well-stocked dealer would have a small section in a single box that included Mexico postcards, usually filed between Italy and Morocco. If I was lucky, a dealer might have an entire box of Mexico postcards. A dealer with multiple

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boxes of Mexico postcards could be an ascent to Nirvana with the requisite visit to the nearest ATM. I might have come away from that Los Angeles show with 50 or so postcards, no so-called killer (exceptional) cards, rather mostly common cards, but I was hooked, and there was no turning back. Over the next eighteen years, I became a passionate collector of Mexico border town postcards, and dealers across the country got to know me for that category. In time, I found most of the common material and with an expanding budget began to seek out the richer veins of better cards. I followed the West Coast postcard show circuit to large gatherings in Phoenix, San Diego, Concord (in the San Francisco East Bay Area), Sacramento, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Pasadena, and Glendale (Greater Los Angeles) and smaller shows in Southern California like Arcadia, Granada Hills, Santa Ana, and Santa Barbara. I expanded my travels to postcard shows in Texas—El Paso, Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth, and Austin. There were postcard shows in Albuquerque and Denver. Pushing east, I ventured to shows in Columbus (Ohio), Chicago, Kansas City (Kansas), Minneapolis, Wichita (Kansas), and Collinsville (Illinois, near St. Louis). The East Coast probably has more postcard collectors and dealers than most of the rest of the country combined. I trekked to large shows in New York, New Jersey, Pompano Beach (Florida), Orlando, Brimfield (Massachusetts), Allentown (Pennsylvania), and—the granddaddy of all postcard events—York (Pennsylvania), where upward of seventy-five dealers would set up and it would take two full days of searching to hunt for material, which is usually there to be discovered. In addition to shows, there were always antique stores to search in all these and dozens of other locations. Some dealers even had stores set up in particular towns. Mary Martin’s World of Postcards in Perryville, Maryland, is as near to postcard heaven as one can hope to ascend. Multiple visits to that shop found me going through more than a dozen long boxes of unsorted Mexico postcards. Then came online vendors, the largest and best known being eBay, but others have since joined the market. With online trading, I can now search for postcards 24/7. I still go to shows, however, because in the end collecting, like many other habits, is a social activity, and meeting people and developing friendships with other collectors as well as dealers is part of the joy in this “benign obsession,” as one of my collector friends calls it. Besides, there is no better way to see thousands of postcards than to attend a show. I first outlined the boundaries for this project in July 1995. The intellectual goal in this nearly two decade long passion for postcards has always been to come to understand how Mexican border towns have been depicted in this extraordinary popular imagery. As a geographer scholar and educator, I am interested in postcards as visual information about places, and I use the imagery to illustrate

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some of my lectures to students and others about the changing nature of these peripheral towns, long ignored but today a growing part of our collective consciousness about our neighbor to the south. As a collector, I am interested in all types of postcards about this borderland whether print or real photo, old or new. My collection is now in the vicinity of some seven thousand postcards of Mexican border towns, and while that total may give pause, I will confess that I still find new and interesting cards almost daily online and at every show I attend. That fact says something about the possibilities of a collecting category and the limitless universe of something as seemingly obscure as postcards of Mexican border towns. Yet there is rich reward in this collecting habit. A collection of many views of specific places over time can create what photographer Mark Klett calls “image density.”² High image density for a place enhances the power of imagery, giving it utility in an exercise bent on telling a story about place. We come to learn that images have a shaping influence in the way we negotiate and think about places. The Mexican border towns are distinctive places, and the postcards tell us something about how these places have been viewed over time. Because postcards can hold sway over our views of place, I have subtitled this project “Picturing the Place.” At the same time, postcards are geographical information, representations of particular places at particular times that enables “Placing the Picture” in a sequence that creates what I call a “serial scripting,” or narrating of place. The postcards—systematically and chronologically arranged—allow us to discover how they create, quite unconsciously, a changing view of that place. That view is not a complete picture of the place, as if that could ever be achieved. Rather, the assembled view is a visitor imaginary, a unique vision because often the same locations and landmarks get photographed and reproduced generation after generation, enabling a sequential perspective through time. While this condition might be accomplished with other kinds of imagery, postcards alone are at once inherently capable of this repetitive dimension and accessible at the same time, qualities not always achieved with other forms of imagery. While postcards are the medium I use in this project to understand places, a reasonable question might be, Why border towns? My connection to Mexican border towns arises from childhood trips with relatives to Tijuana, the border town nearest the home of my youth in Los Angeles. In 1987, along with friend and colleague James Curtis, I engaged a project to visit, observe, research, and then write about the geographical personality of the Mexican border towns, places that had largely to that point in time been neglected by serious scholarship, certainly by geographers. The Mexican Border Cities: Landscape Anatomy and Place Personality was the foundational project in what has become an academic life built around continued exploration and writing about these places.³ Postcards

Preface and Acknowledgments

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from the Río Bravo Border is the first installment in a series of books that will explore the entirety of the Mexican border through postcard images. Whereas The Mexican Border Cities was largely a contemporary analysis of the system of border towns, this book is a historical geography, a portrait about how the past is visualized in selected Mexican towns along the Texas border. In Mexico, where there is a tradition of this type of story about places in the past, it is called historia gráfica.⁴ The emphasis is not simply illustrated history; instead, the purpose is to excavate how images and their makers are part of a visual telling about people and place. Between 1900 and the late 1950s, Mexican border towns came of age both as tourist destinations and as emerging cities in their own right. Postcard imagery helps us see these places during that five-decade transformation. The present volume interprets five Río Bravo Mexican border towns. I use Río Bravo, the Mexican name for the river called the Rio Grande in the United States, because this project explores the Mexican, not American, border towns. The geographical focus (discussed in Chapter 1) is five Río Bravo towns that were major tourist destinations during the period of study, the 1900s to 1950s. These towns, unlike smaller Río Bravo border towns like Camargo and Ciudad Miguel Áleman, were intensely captured by postcard photographers, creating a sufficient base of images to assess the places visually. Smaller towns, therefore, lacked image density to illustrate how the towns were viewed by postcard images. Still other Río Bravo border towns like Ojinaga and Ciudad Juárez are not examined in this work because their historical geographies are linked to another chapter in the narrative visual history of the Mexican borderland, and they will be investigated in a separate project. Postcards from the Río Bravo Border is based exclusively on postcards from my collection unless otherwise noted and attributed in captions. Nevertheless, one’s collection alone cannot a story tell, and the researcher must reach out to other collections and archives to add context, depth, and understanding to a narrative. The public and private collections consulted for this project are given in the bibliography. Many institutions and individuals were important to any success achieved by this project. The School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, permitted a year-long sabbatical for me to organize, research, and produce the book. A research fellowship through the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University (SMU) was the ideal intellectual environment to execute the project. The center helped fund fieldwork on the border in Fall 2010 and Spring 2011, as well as visits to many of the libraries, archives, and collections listed below. Residence in Dallas in Spring 2011 permitted interaction with fellows and faculty at SMU who shared my enthusiasm for the project, including Interim Director Benjamin H.

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Johnson, Executive Director Andrea Boardman, and Assistant to the Directors Ruth Ann Elmore. Special thanks are due to the late founding director of the Clements Center, David J. Weber, who saw promise in my proposal for this work and invited me to Dallas. His record of Southwestern scholarship has been an inspiration to me, as it has been and continues to be to so many others. Also at SMU, thanks go to Anne E. Peterson, curator of photographs, DeGolyer Library, who guided me through a rich archive of Mexico imagery; Roberto Tejada, professor of art history, who allowed me to share ideas about imagery and landscape with his seminar; borderland historians Alexis McCrossen and John Chávez, who listened patiently and offered feedback to some of my ideas about Mexican border imagery and place; and Clements Center fellows in residence during my stay, historians Elizabeth Turner and Jason Mellard, historical archeologist Matthew Liebemann, and ethnohistorian Sami Lakomäki. Numerous contacts in Texas and on the border assisted in accessing materials used in this project or permitted personal interviews about lives in relation to a border town. In Brownsville and Matamoros: John Hawthorne, special collections librarian, Arnulfo L. Oliveira Memorial Library, University of Texas Brownsville—Texas Southmost College; and Manuel Humberto Gonzáles Ramos, cronista and cartógrafo of Matamoros. In McAllen, Edinburg, and Reynosa: George Gause, special collections librarian, University of Texas–Pan American; Barbara Stokes, senior curator, Museum of South Texas History; Esteban Lomas, information technology specialist, Museum of South Texas History; and the late David J. Mycue, curator of archives and collections, Museum of South Texas History. In Laredo and Nuevo Laredo: Joe R. Moreno, Jr., special collections librarian, Laredo Public Library; Christina Davila Saucedo, archives manager, Webb County Heritage Foundation; Jeanette Hatcher, special collections librarian, Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library, Texas A&M International University; and Jerry D. Thompson, Department of Social Sciences, Texas A&M International University. In Eagle Pass, Piedras Negras, Del Rio, and Ciudad Acuña: Roberto R. Calderón, Department of History, University of North Texas; John Stockley, curator, Ft. Duncan Museum; the staff of the Eagle Pass Public Library; and Rosantina S. Calvetti, Warren Studio. In San Antonio: Tom Shelton, senior curator, Institute of Texan Cultures, University of Texas, San Antonio; Marise McDermott, president and CEO, Witte Museum; and Amy Fulkerson, curator of collections, Witte Museum. In San Angelo: Suzanne Campbell, librarian of the West Texas Collection, Angelo State University; and Arnoldo de León, Department of History, Angelo State University. Still others have been generous with their time, answering queries and providing materials. Debra Gust, image and licensing specialist at the Curt Teich

Preface and Acknowledgments

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Postcard Archive, made available production schedules for Curt Teich postcards produced for the Río Bravo border towns. Mayra N. Uribe Eguiluz of Mexico City kindly shared her important thesis about the early history of La Compañía México Fotográfico and allowed me to reproduce an image from that document. Terry Christiansen of Richardson, Texas, was kind enough to allow me to reproduce two of his postcards of Matamoros from his splendid collection of Rio Grande Valley materials and shared information about the life of postcard photographer W. M. Cline. Barbara Trapido-Lurie, senior academic professional in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University made base maps and drafted final maps for the project. Colleagues inside and outside of the academy read parts of the manuscript and provided valuable feedback, including landscape geographer and postcard collector Kevin Blake, Kansas State University; borderland geographer and postcard collector William Manger, Texas A&M International University; and historical geographer Richard Francaviglia, Salem, Oregon. Susan Toomey Frost of San Antonio—an extraordinary collector of many things Mexican and an inspiration through her commitment to the collecting habit—read chapters and shared her expertise about Mexico postcards. Regents Professor and dean of Mexico borderland historians Oscar J. Martínez, University of Arizona, and Professor Emeritus and esteemed historical geographer of American landscapes John A. Jakle, University of Illinois, graciously consented to read and review an early draft of the manuscript in its entirety. I am grateful to these scholars and to the Clements Center at SMU, which enabled this important step in the course of this project. I am especially grateful to Willam F. Manger and Susan Toomey Frost, fellow Mexico postcard collectors in Laredo and San Antonio, respectively, for access to their personal collections and related materials and for their hospitality and companionship on visits to the border and South Texas. At the University of Texas Press, sponsoring editor Allison Faust shared enthusiasm for the proposed project from its earliest iteration, managing editor Victoria Davis directed the manuscript through the necessary stages to publication, and Jennifer Dropkin proved a splendid copy editor. I would be remiss not to mention at least some of those people who make the collecting of postcards possible—the dealers. Without their work to excavate and accumulate from varied sources, collectors would be seriously handicapped. In almost two decades of collecting, I have befriended dozens of dealers at shows and online. I cannot come close to listing all who have worked to find material and bring it to shows or to auction online, so my apologies for those many who are not acknowledged here. The following have been unusually helpful over the years: Terry and Norene Pavy, Fred Tenney, Michael Lee Lanning, Frank Green,

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Jon Bourgeouis, Tony Meager, Ralph Bowman, Dan De Palma, Nick Farago, Norm and Bess Sturgess, Jim Reid, R. G. Buzz Kinninmont, Steve and Janet Schmale, Michael Fairley, Ned Coleman, Ken Wilson, David Crockett, Norman Porter, Jim Taylor, Rick Holben, Hiram Lewis, Mary L. Martin, Bill Martin, Joe Russell, Shirley Cox, Ove Braskerud, Jeff Eastland, Kayce Dimond, Marilyn and Howie Gottlieb, Tom Snyder, Tom Mulvaney, Dennis Goreham, Stefano Neis, Tammy Lonergan, and Danny Danielson. This book is dedicated to my wife and fellow deltiologist, traveler, and landscape enthusiast Dr. Susan Katherine Arreola, who has traveled the long road of this project with me day in and day out, including treks to shows all across the country for more than a decade. She read and edited the entire manuscript, improving my grammar, catching typographical errors, and making constructive comments to enhance clarity. She has been heartily supportive of my peculiar obsession for this undertaking despite my absences in the field and to visit collections that on occasion have taken me from her side and joyful companionship.

Preface and Acknowledgments

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P OSTCARDS FROM THE RÍO BR AVO BORDER

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INTRODUCTION A desirable image is one that celebrates and enlarges the present while making connections with past and future. — KEVIN LYNCH, WHAT TIME IS THIS PL ACE? (1976)

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. — WILLIAM FAULKNER, REQUIEM FOR A NUN (1950)

Every landscape tells a story. — CHRISTOPHER SALTER (2006)

postcards from the río bravo border engages the relationship among photographic image, past place, and landscape. Photographs are part of what is called “visual culture,” a term that emerged first in the art world of the 1970s and that is now understood as an umbrella expression for imagery in general and its relationship to cultures.¹ Visual culture through photographs is central to the particular goals of this story. Visual culture is examined in its association with travel and tourism as cultural processes because the tourist was the primary audience for the picture postcard, the principal visual medium explored in this project. Further, the work investigates representations of border places in the past and the production of images by period photographers because towns were the subjects of the postcard photographs. Critically, the story is told by reading the landscape of postcard imagery to construct a visual narrative about Río Bravo border towns between the 1900s and the 1950s. Postcards that connect picture and place are called “view cards.” The popularity of postcards in the early decades of the twentieth century revolutionized our relationship to places. The availability of popular imagery including view postcards fundamentally transformed American engagement with place. Imagery elevated place beyond direct experience and the written word. Travelers—both armchair and tourist alike—could now consume place through imagery, and the simple postcard view was a critical entree in that process. “Place” is a term that might seem innocent to the lay reader. Places are,

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however, complex human creations, and how pictures of place have influenced the geographical imagination is an emerging field in cultural geography.² Critical to this project is an understanding of how picture postcards shaped place. It is argued that picture postcards became part of the script of a visitor experience, most especially places that lacked attention through traditional travel books, the historic and popular means that communicated about nineteenth- and twentieth-century travel.³ Picture postcards were not the places themselves; rather, they were representations of a place: the scene of the seen. Postcards, therefore, both represented and narrated place for visitors. They were collected to remember place, yet they could stimulate a desire to visit place. Further, postcards of a place analyzed systematically create an understanding of place that may be unique as a form of visual culture.⁴ For example, postcards can be used to compare changes in a place through rephotography, which illustrates the place at two different times, or they can be arranged serially for a particular place to visualize change through time. Landscape, like place, can appear to be a naïve term suggesting an area or field of view. It is most certainly that, but theoretically it can be examined as a socially constructed space that includes many visible and invisible clues to a culture’s preference for making place. In this way, landscapes can be read like a text, and in this project landscape is both the view in a postcard image and the unraveling of that view to make it understandable as a product of people, place, and time.⁵ Photography as part of visual culture is considered modern. As a technical achievement, photographic reproduction generates credibility by the fact of capturing a person or place, fixing it for posterity. Today, it strains us to imagine that this is somehow novel, yet until the early nineteenth century representing something visually was chiefly the domain of the arts, and the arts were largely linked to affluence, especially powerful individuals and institutions. By the early twentieth century, photographic representation became accessible. This “massification,” or the ease with which image reproduction circulated, changed our relationship with image.⁶ No longer the province of elites, images became widely produced and reproduced. Scholarly exploration of visual culture through tourism has chiefly ignored historical reflection in favor of contemporary experience. Classic sociological treatises such as Dean MacCannell’s study of tourist behavior or John Urry’s investigation of the tourist gaze have been almost exclusively contemporary analyses.⁷ While it is asserted that photography in the nineteenth century structured the tourist gaze, it is admitted that much speculation about the relationship between tourism and photography has yielded little empirical investigation into their connections.⁸ Even more rare is any serious attempt to interpret the

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relationship among image, tourism, and places in the past.⁹ Postcards from the Río Bravo Border is foremost an exploration of that relationship, one pivoted on the photographic postcard and the tourist visitor experience to Río Bravo Mexican border towns between the 1900s and the 1950s. That first half of the twentieth century was when Mexican border towns emerged as popular destinations for American visitors.

A N ATOMY OF TH E TOURIST PATH : ME RGING P OSTCARD IMAGE A ND P L AC E Capturing postcard images of border towns required some knowledge of places within and around those towns to be photographed. To be sure, this production was a selective process because not all places in a town were of interest to a photographer, and certainly, the universe of places to see was limited and appreciated as well by the visitor who was the consumer-purchaser of the postcard. As a result, what gets shown in postcard views very quickly becomes a narrow range of places, some perhaps well-known even to first-time visitors because the site has notoriety from previous circulated images. Other locations are hardly recognized or known about in advance, and a very few places visited may well be quite exotic to even the most seasoned traveler. In 1957, cultural landscape historian John Brinckerhoff Jackson published an essay about a fictitious encounter that a visitor might have with an American town. Jackson called that experience “the stranger’s path.”¹⁰ The path was the street-level route into the American downtown, a space that was increasingly alien to travelers during the so-called urban removal period of that era, when middle-class populations were fleeing to suburbs away from city centers, which were becoming abandoned and leveled, creating a patchwork of empty lots in our urban cores.¹¹ The process also described Jackson’s discoveries on entering many an American small town, places that were coming to a similar phase of abandonment as generations once resident in those emptied communities relocated to the cities. According to Jackson, these paths, once well-worn corridors of access and egress to Americans of an earlier generation, had become lonely and forgotten with the construction of interstate highways and the growing popularity of bypass travel. They were, therefore, strange in a way that suggested the unfamiliar, the uneasy, and the derelict, landscapes out of step with the expanding suburbanization that became rampant during the 1960s–1970s. The stranger’s path was populated with broken sidewalks, potholed streets, pawnshops, single room occupant hotels, tacky motels and roadside eateries, and abandonment. Yet Jackson found this landscape alluring and full of lessons about how American places came to be, how they survived, changed, and adapted and the particular

Introduction

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populations of the urban and small-town scene. Jackson’s stranger’s path is a metaphor for the path journeyed by visitors to the Río Bravo border towns. Visitors to Mexican border towns during the 1900s–1950s experienced their own strange paths, routes through towns that may have seemed exotic to many. In fact, the stranger’s path, or tourist route, was a very calculated and highly orchestrated promenade meant to expose visitors to specific sites in border communities with nary a single detour. This framework was likely the result of the photographer entrepreneur’s awareness of selected locations that had become popular with visitors. Deviation from this programmed experience was not impossible, but more often the postcard views themselves helped navigate the route, acting as signposts of the sites that were most popular. In many, perhaps most, instances it was likely that the route was relived through the sequence of postcards accumulated and not mailed during the visit. This may in part explain why so many postcards found in private collections today are not messaged or posted. Like guidebooks that were templates to the tourist experience of place, postcards typically structured the tourist path, reinforcing the established sites to be seen in a place. In this way, visitor encounters with Mexican border towns followed a common thread known by traveler tourists around the world for generations. The peculiar anatomy of the Mexican border cities shaped the stranger’s path and also the kinds of views of places represented in postcards. Mexican border towns in large part are truncated on their northern reaches by the international boundary, creating a need to formally enter the town from the neighboring U.S. town. This situation creates both a gateway landscape and a crossing experience. Postcard photographers were keenly aware of this condition. All border crossings were, therefore, dramatic entry points represented by forms of transport across the boundary including infrastructures like bridges and gateway facilities that monitored and controlled access to the border town visited and beyond. In fact, essentially every border town was a doorway to the interior of Mexico, and visitor entry was sometimes transitory if the destination was a location far beyond the border. In this way, every gateway acted as an entrêpot, a point of passage to a hinterland that extended well south of the international boundary at a specific border town. Regardless, the gateway and crossing were the first exposure of travelers-visitors to the Mexico of their imagination. The gateway landscape, therefore, is the first station of the stranger’s path, a threshold that becomes cemented in the mind of the visitor through the anxiety of the experience but also through the memory of the postcards that represent the place. Once visitors cross successfully through a gateway they are typically dumped onto a single street that launches them along the path. These main streets are usually linear alignments that run perpendicular to the international boundary

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and act like a spine to the anatomy of a town. In some places this is a set of zigzag streets or even a curving path away from the gateway toward the center of the border town. Unlike a spine that suggests rigid linearity, the string, as this other main street has been called, can be a circuitous route, creating heightened anxiety for visitors who expect the border town to unfold easily for them after navigating the crossing. These street landscapes, or streetscapes, are often the principal retail strips of the border towns lined with curio shops, eateries, bars, and other attractions appealing to tourist visitors. Whether spine or string, these spaces were a second station or arrangement on the path, and postcard photographers documented the blocks of businesses, the activities and traffic— pedestrian and automotive—along and sometimes in the streets, thereby capturing the commercial vitality that marked every border town. For some visitors, these streets were the extent of their interaction with the town, wanting only to shop, eat, drink, and return to the safety of the U.S. side of the boundary. The plaza has been called the heart and soul of any Mexican town. It is a rectangular space typically created with the founding of a community, and border towns, like towns across Mexico, each feature a plaza and sometimes several plazas. The plaza or plazas are usually the destination of the spine or string street described above. In some towns, the plaza is offset from this main street, and at other times the plaza actually sits as a buffer between the gateway and the spine. This space is a pedestrian oasis typically studded with plants and trees, walk paths, benches, a fountain, and a bandstand. Here visitors can mingle with local residents who use the plaza as a physical respite in their daily activities or a gathering spot for special events. Plazas conventionally boast the town’s largest public buildings, especially the church and municipal palace, and collectively they showcase the architectural splendor of a community. The plaza is a prime location for postcard photographers, and virtually every town is represented by postcard views of its plaza. It is, therefore, the third station of the path and in some ways the most popular and actively sought center of the town for visitor and resident alike. Beyond the central space of the plaza, border town visitors were drawn to a number of sites that I call “attractions” because each has a particular function and/or attraction that a visitor moves into and out of, and typically the space accommodated larger crowds than a single point like a business establishment. An attraction can be many different kinds of public or private spaces but for the purposes of this project include markets and arenas. All border towns had public markets and bullfighting arenas, and these spaces in some towns were major tourist attractions. They were typically situated away from the gateway, main street, and plaza, but visitors, with local assistance, could find their way to those locations, and they became sites captured visually by postcard photographers.

Introduction

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Attractions thus became a fourth type of station for visitors, expanding the lure of the border town beyond the commonly recognized loci described above. Another category of spaces captured by postcard photographers is businesses and landmarks. These were specific locations in the building fabric of the border town, for example, a bar, curio store, or public building. Unlike plazas or attractions, businesses were common along streets and side streets in a town, multiple in number, and frequented by visitors as part of their wanderings along the path. These sites, not surprisingly, were also fodder for postcard photographers, and typically were the primary dispensing locations for postcard sales. Specific buildings and spaces, however, were popular landmarks to the tourist, and visualized by postcard photographers. Businesses and landmarks were critical stops, de rigueur pauses along the tourist path. The Río Bravo border towns, like all places in Mexico, contain aspects of everyday life alluring to visitors and therefore postcard photographers. Domestic scenes varied by particular location but could include almost anything off the tourist path. Residences, street vendors, washerwomen, special celebrations, peculiarities—any event or circumstance that marked everyday life of the river border town seemed fair game for photographers. These scenic detours were quite exotic to most visitors, and postcard photographers found them potentially endearing images that made for the perfect curious postcard mirroring border town life.

ORGANIZATION Postcards from the Río Bravo Border is organized in three parts: “Places and Postcards,” “Postcard Views,” and “Sight into Site.” The chapters in these sections present the story of how the Mexican border towns of the Río Bravo visually came to represent Mexico for thousands of visitors. Early chapters contextualize the border towns and postcards while later chapters assess the border town landscapes as visual culture. Chapters 1 and 2 introduce the border towns and postcards. Chapter 1 contextualizes the historical geography of Río Bravo towns, setting a framework to understand how places came to be and how they expanded geographically through phases of growth spurred by social and economic events of the 1900s through 1950s. Places strategic to the tourist experience are mapped and described for each town, and selected panoramic postcard images illustrate views of each town at two separate time periods to suggest how postcards came to represent places. Chapter 2 moves the story to an explanation of postcards as forms of visual culture and postcard photography, especially individual photographers and postcard companies that produced images of the Río Bravo border towns.

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This chapter also discusses how Mexican places have been visually represented in the past and how those representations compare to postcard views. Postcards of Mexico are shown to be a continuum of earlier forms of popular imagery, socially constructed and framed to tell a particular story about people and place. Chapters 3–6 are assembled to follow a common template for the stations of the path encountered by tourist visitors and captured visually by postcard photographers. In each chapter, a short introductory essay frames the views being presented, drawing on historical materials to create a context for seeing the postcard views. The postcard images are then paired to a description that distills the essence of that representation as part of the larger fabric of the theme. What unfolds is less a treatise in dense prose about each station of the path than a visual exploration of place as revealed by postcard views. In addition to paired text and image, I use vignettes to elaborate particular themes that are part of the stations of the path being shown. These vignettes are intended to vary the overall narrative using selected towns to illustrate a theme. In this way, a reader can select and engage from within the chapters particular arrangements or places of interest or to move out of sequence as one’s attention is drawn to one or another theme or town. I hope that in this manner, the work becomes valuable to readers who desire the complete story as well as those who might be interested only in pieces of the whole. Chapters 7 and 8 are organized as essays with gallery images to illustrate the examples of businesses, landmarks, and everyday life for the river border towns. An introductory essay briefly explains the themes, which are followed by a portfolio of images drawn from the border towns of the study and linked to extended captions. The presentation is thus thematic and graphic without restriction to any particular town. Chapter 9 summarizes the findings from this project and distills larger conclusions about the relationship between visual culture and place. The lessons learned in this exploration can expand our ways of seeing places in the past, creating applications that enhance understanding of landscapes beyond the Río Bravo border towns.

VIEWSCAPES The path is the thread that joins place and postcard imagery in this project. Thematically, the stations of the path—including gateways, streets, plazas, and attractions, along with businesses, landmarks, and everyday life—are swatches of fabric that sewn together create a quilt of visual representation of Río Bravo border towns. I term these swatches “viewscapes,” combining the postcard photographer’s view of place with the geographer’s habit of using landscape as a

Introduction

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medium to understand how places are made. Viewscapes enable us to both visualize and interpret locations along the path followed by so many visitors to these towns. In this way, I seek to engage the reader to become that tourist visitor, seeing the pieces of the mosaic that constitute the Río Bravo Mexican border town through time. Chapter 3, titled “Gateways,” introduces viewscapes of the crossing spaces that were the first places visitors encountered in their journey along the path through a Río Bravo Mexican border town. In the first half of the twentieth century, crossings from the United States to Mexico took place by boat, railroad, mule car, streetcar, auto, and, of course, by foot. This chapter draws examples from the towns to examine the variation in transport forms and landscapes created by and for these modes of conveyance and revealed by postcard images. Two vignettes then detail how specific border towns were especially promoted based on the nature of their gateways. Matamoros, before railroad and auto bridges joined it to Brownsville, was unusual because of the peculiar nature of getting from the American shore via watercraft and then changing to mule cars—later streetcars— on the Mexican shore for the long ride into the center of town. This gateway was very popular to postcard photographers who seemed fascinated with this dual transport experience where visitors moved by boat and mule car or streetcar to the central plaza of the town. A second vignette spotlights Nuevo Laredo’s important gateway function through the sequence of bridges erected across the Rio Grande/Río Bravo. Both rail and auto bridges were built and rebuilt over the first five decades of the twentieth century. Destructive floods along the river interrupted and inundated Nuevo Laredo as well as other towns. Later, when Nuevo Laredo–Laredo became the border portal for the Pan American Highway—the first paved road connecting the United States and the interior of Mexico—bridges there were celebrated for their arching function, which linked hinterlands far beyond the international boundary. Postcard photographers capitalized on the importance of these changing connections where simple access was elevated to visual icon and reproduced many times for a consuming public. In Chapter 4, “Streets,” the reader is introduced to the linear spaces of the path that point the visitor to the center of the Río Bravo border town experience. These arteries connect the gateway to the commercial, social, and entertainment activities strung along the main streets of the border towns like pearls on a necklace. The chapter first describes the variety of street forms for the Río Bravo towns, then illustrates some of that diversity with postcard images. Two vignettes again expand the view of these spaces for particular towns. Calle Zaragoza is the main street of Piedras Negras opposite Eagle Pass, Texas. It is positioned beyond the town’s main plaza, which greets a visitor after exiting the gateway. Calle Zaragoza is crowded with the principal businesses of the town,

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and it continues on to become the major highway out of town. That situation made it the most attractive street in Piedras Negras. Bustling with people and activity, Calle Zaragoza proved a strategic viewscape, ripe for the eye of the postcard photographer. Avenida Guerrero, Nuevo Laredo’s commercial spine, is explored in a second vignette. More than any other Río Bravo border town main street, Guerrero is the prototypical retail strip. Unlike Calle Zaragoza in Piedras Negras, Avenida Guerrero explodes from its entry gate without interruption. It has been the main street of the town since Nuevo Laredo’s founding in the middle nineteenth century. Its centrality in the landscape anatomy of the border town is reinforced by its function as the principal highway that leads south to the interior of Mexico, a route that became institutionalized with the opening of the Pan American Highway in 1939. Along Guerrero are Nuevo Laredo’s main plazas, positioned like alternate spaces on a checkerboard. Commercial businesses are posted along the street between these public squares like chess pieces lined up ready for play. The primacy of this street was an allure to postcard photographers over many generations, and it is no exaggeration to suggest that Avenida Guerrero is the iconic Mexican border town main street. Consequently, it may also be one of the best-recognized border town stations of the path. Chapter 5 showcases “Plazas,” perhaps the most central and focused station along the path and a fundamental fix for postcard photographers. These social hubs graced every Río Bravo border town. In the larger towns, multiple plazas were part of the townscape. In other towns, a single plaza mayor or plaza principal (main or principal plaza) was the social nexus. This chapter presents an overview about border town plazas drawing examples from all towns to suggest the variety of views and activities that were snapped through the shutter of the postcard photographer’s camera. Two vignettes are used to elaborate particular plazas. Reynosa’s Plaza Hidalgo became the subject of the postcard photographer’s lens from the 1920s through the 1950s. Situated at the end of a string street linked to the crossing, the plaza was the central focus of the town’s commercial and social activities. Plaza Hidalgo in Reynosa became a postcard fix during Prohibition as thousands of Texans and others were lured to its bars and entertainment outlets. During the 1940s, its church, retail businesses, hotels, and curio stores made the space a celebrated venue for locals and outsiders alike. As a consequence, it was repeatedly featured in postcard images of Reynosa, disproportionate to other stations of the path in the town. High image density enables a reconstructed serial view of this space that is unusual among all border towns. Villa Acuña’s Plaza Benjamín Canales is the chapter’s second vignette. Unlike Reynosa’s Plaza Hidalgo, Villa Acuña’s social center is slightly off the path, behind the main commercial streets of the town. The social space is several blocks from Acuña’s entertainment spine along Calle Hidalgo. Nevertheless, postcard photographers

Introduction

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feature the plaza in selected images, if not to the same degree that they documented Reynosa’s plaza. Views of the church, principal public buildings, and the peaceful nature of the square present Villa Acuña’s plaza as a local space, known by tourists and occasionally visited, but chiefly a quiet place oriented to residents because it was away from the action of the town’s main drag. Categorically, it is a station on the path, but practically, it illustrates how postcard photographers diverted from that path to feature a space they recognized as fundamental to the identity of the town regardless of its location. Chapter 6, “Attractions,” visits other private and public spaces in the Río Bravo border towns. Train and bus stations, aduanas, or customs houses, and other spaces that might attract a congregation of patrons were recognized gathering sites. This chapter highlights two such locations: markets, or mercados, and bullrings—so called plazas de toros. Markets were large public spaces where goods of every imaginable type could be vended and attracted resident and visitor alike. Bullrings were, like plazas, common to every border town. As seasonal entertainment spaces, they attracted both residents and visitors. These spaces are described in general for all Río Bravo border towns and then inspected through case study vignettes. The Mercado in Matamoros is explored as the first vignette for the chapter. Located several blocks from the main plaza yet centrally positioned in the town, the market became a popular station stop along the tourist path and thereby a subject for postcard photographers. The market transformed over the period from 1900 to 1950, first serving exclusively locals and later tourists as well as residents. The market physically transformed over the years, but the indooroutdoor nature of the space made for intimate interiors as well as aisle street-like views. That quality especially made it viable for postcard photographers who made fewer images of other border town markets that were essentially enclosed structures. Perhaps the most famous bullring of the Río Bravo border towns was La Macarena in Villa Acuña, the chapter’s second vignette. Called a “West Texas custom,” visiting the town’s plaza de toros was more than sporting entertainment: it was a packaged experience that could include a meal and drinks at La Macarena Café adjoining the bullring. Situated only a few short blocks from the gateway and but one block off Villa Acuña’s main street, Calle Hidalgo, La Macarena was a recognized station of the path, and a venue for many forms of entertainment beyond its famous blood sport. Not surprisingly, postcard photographers had a ringside seat for events and celebrations at La Macarena, and its legendary status was no doubt enshrined, in part, through postcards. Chapter 7 examines through essay and portfolio “Businesses and Landmarks” that captivated postcard photographers and thus were part of the visitor path. These include bars, restaurants, curio stores, public and private buildings, and even cemeteries. Each of these locations was a specific and precise stop but

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generically important as a type of space. Unlike attractions that were large gathering sites and few in number, businesses were numerous and spread across the urban fabric, while landmarks were architecturally unique yet common to each town. They merit attention because all were the repeated subject of the postcard photographer’s fancy, and all types were arguably critical to any visitor’s experience. Every border town had bars and restaurants, the mainstays of any tourist locale. Particular establishments, nevertheless, gained notoriety and therefore became captured in postcards for visitors. Postcards showing the exteriors and interiors of these businesses were a form of advertising, creating familiarity in the minds of present and future patrons. Curio stores were another staple of the Río Bravo border town visitor experience, and every town included this type of retail. These businesses became especially popular after Prohibition and the Mexican national government’s ban on casino gambling in the late 1930s. Examples are drawn from several towns to suggest the kinds of views common to the postcard image. Chapter 7 also includes selected examples of specialized places like historic landmarks, customs houses, radio broadcast facilities that patronized American audiences, and cemeteries, the latter especially attractive because of their distinctive architecture. “Everyday Life” through essay and gallery images is the subject of Chapter 8. Scenes of local living were selectively attractive detours to tourist visitors and postcard photographers. Street scenes of domesticity were invariably subject to visitor curiosity, and this chapter illustrates selected examples of domestic life in the Río Bravo border towns captured by postcard photographers. Daily labor, shopkeepers, residential types, work spaces, entertainment venues, public spaces, schools, families, the home, and celebrations are examples of everyday life captured in postcards. Vendors, for example, have been part of the urban scene for as long as there have been towns. Along the Río Bravo, a particular form of street peddler—the barrilero, or water cart vendor—was a fixture of every town before permanent water delivery systems were common. During the early decades of the twentieth century, barrileros, so-called because of the barrels that held the water that was captured at river’s edge and mounted to simple mule- or horse-drawn carts, roamed the residential and business streets dispensing their essential commodity. To visitors and postcard photographers alike this exotic form of water delivery had nearly disappeared from the American urban scene by the 1900s, as water delivery systems became public and standardized. The prosaic that was readily visible in the Mexican border environment made for popular imagery. Finally, Chapter 9 summarizes the findings for the book and draws conclusions about the relationship between postcard image and place engagement in the Río Bravo border towns.

Introduction

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PA RT I

PLACES AND POSTCARDS Postcards from the Río Bravo Border begins with a discussion about places and postcards. Chapter 1, “Río Bravo Border Towns,” introduces the towns of Matamoros, Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, Piedras Negras, and Villa Acuña. These places were shaped by their particular sites as river settlements across from American towns and by natural disasters peculiar to their locations. In the first half of the twentieth century certain historical episodes like the Mexican Revolution, American Prohibition, and the growth of tourism each affected the Mexican border towns. The towns are mapped and viewed through selective panoramic postcard images to create a visual fix for the places. Chapter 2, “Postcards,” shifts the story to the visual media form that is the foundation of the project. Photography is a precondition to the emergence of postcards as views of place, especially in how this process evolved in Mexico and on the border. Postcards became a popular form of imagery by the early twentieth century, coinciding with the historic episodes described below. The chapter discusses the history of postcards, especially those created by photographers in border towns, and how postcards are used in this project.

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FIG. 1.1

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Río Bravo border towns.

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1

RÍO BRAVO BORDER TOWNS

border towns of the río bravo are part of the larger system of border places along the 2000-mile boundary that separates the United States from Mexico.¹ This project explores five towns that line the opposite bank of the Rio Grande facing Texas (Fig. 1.1). These towns are located in the north Mexican states of Tamaulipas (Matamoros, Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo) and Coahuila (Piedras Negras, Villa Acuña). I refer to these towns as situated along the Río Bravo (del Norte), as the river is called in Mexico. The towns are positioned on the easternmost segment of the Río Bravo–Rio Grande drainage where the river drops below the escarpments of West and Central Texas. In this area, the river flows through lowland plains that extend from South Texas to northeast Mexico as it makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico.² These border towns along the boundary are river settlements that have been forged by circumstances on two sides of the Río Bravo. Their geographic situation straddling the heartland of Texas and the interior of Mexico has shaped their historical experience. Proximity to the east, south, and central states of the United States has further influenced the early development of these towns. While twentieth-century visitors to the Río Bravo towns came from many states in the United States, the overwhelming majority originated in Texas and surrounding regions. This chapter sets the stage for the project by contextualizing the development of the border towns and the major events that have shaped them in the first half

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of the twentieth-century. I then present a snapshot of each town as a geographic canvas using maps and panoramic postcard imagery to establish a visual sense of place for the communities between the 1900s and 1950s.

BEGINNINGS There was no border, and thus there were no true border towns, before 1848. Along the Río Bravo, two of the five settlements considered in this project were founded during the eighteenth-century Spanish colonial era, and the remaining three were established in the nineteenth century after Mexican independence and Texas annexation by the United States. Matamoros, the oldest of the Río Bravo border towns, was a Spanish missionary settlement of the early eighteenth century, first known as San Juan de Los Esteros del Refugio. Esteros, literally “estuaries,” refer to meanders of the Río Bravo as it winds toward the gulf some twenty miles to the east. After Mexico gained its independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century, the mission settlement was elevated to a formal town and renamed Matamoros to honor Mariano Matamoros, a priest executed during the Mexican wars for independence. Further, the official name of the town is Heroico (heroic) Matamoros, in reference to its withstanding invasions by opposing forces, foreign and domestic. Matamoros was once a walled city, one of only a handful in the history of Mexico.³ The other town of Spanish colonial origin is Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Reynosa, named after a town in Spain and founded in 1749 upstream from its present location as part of a colonization scheme to populate the Río Bravo frontier. It was relocated to its present site on slightly elevated land in 1802 because of persistent flooding at the original location. Since its earliest days the town has been known simply as Reynosa, sometimes spelled Reinosa.⁴ Nuevo Laredo emerged in 1848 as the Mexican counterpart to the older Spanish colonial town of Laredo, established in 1755 on the opposite bank of the river in present Texas. Called both Laredo de Monterrey and Laredo de Tamaulipas during the nineteenth century, by the twentieth century it was known as Nuevo Laredo (New Laredo). In the twentieth century, postcard photographers and visitors sometimes referred to the town as Laredo, Mexico, ignoring the qualification of Nuevo. Piedras Negras and Villa Acuña appeared as military posts along the Río Bravo frontier in 1850 and 1877, respectively. The U.S. founding of Fort Duncan—to combat Indian and bandit hostilities—at the site of the present Eagle Pass, Texas, prompted the Mexican settlement on the opposite bank of the river and called Piedras Negras (Black Rocks) after coal deposits in the vicinity.⁵ In 1888, the town name was changed to Ciudad Porfirio Díaz to honor then-president of

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Mexico Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911). The name was changed back to Piedras Negras in 1911 after the Mexican Revolution toppled the Díaz regime.⁶ In 1877 the town that would become Villa Acuña was organized across the river from the Texas town of (San Felipe) Del Rio. The settlement was first called El Capitan Leal and was changed to Villa Garza Galan in 1890. In 1894 it was renamed Las Vacas after the small tributary Arroyo de Las Vacas that flows into the Río Bravo from Mexico at the site. In 1912, the governor of Coahuila replaced that name with Villa Acuña to honor Coahuilan native son and poet Manual Acuña, whose poetry had become popular during the Mexican Revolution. Finally, in 1957, Villa Acuña became elevated to city status and has since been known officially as Ciudad Acuña, but is often referred to simply as Acuña.⁷

REVOLUTION AND PROH IBITI O N Two twentieth-century events had profound impacts on the five Río Bravo border towns: the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1921 and American Prohibition of 1919–1933. The border towns were entangled in the conflicts of the Revolution, with battles waged in the streets and towns at siege by contending forces. American Prohibition, in contrast, brought economic enhancement to the towns through tourists who sought drink and entertainment legally unavailable in the United States. The Texas-Mexico border was an area of lawlessness and international confrontation since its creation by the formation of the Texas Republic in 1836.⁸ The Revolution in Mexico and the so-called Plan of San Diego that called for Mexican Americans and others to take up arms against Anglo-Americans in Texas and across the American Southwest created a war scare along the Rio Grande in 1915, causing U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to mobilize more than 100,000 troops to be dispatched to the border.⁹ The Revolution directly affected the Mexican border towns that faced Texas because some of these settlements, like Nuevo Laredo and Piedras Negras, were major railroad gateways and trading centers.¹⁰ Between 1913 and 1915, contending revolutionary forces fought for control of Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo, the latter town being burned by the occupying army in 1914 (Fig. 1.2).¹¹ In September 1911, several hundred residents of Reynosa, mostly women and children, fled across the river to Hidalgo, Texas, to escape a battle in the Mexican border town, which was sacked regularly during the Revolution to the point that one observer called it a “dying town.”¹² In a single day in October 1913, thousands of Mexican refugees fled the conflict by crossing from Piedras Negras to Eagle Pass, Texas.¹³ Nevertheless, Río Bravo border towns, except Piedras Negras, all grew during the decade of the Mexican Revolution (Table 1.1). Photographers were drawn to

Río Bravo Border Towns

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Nuevo Laredo, burned by federal forces that occupied the city during the Mexican Revolution in 1914, became a subject for postcard photographers.

FIG. 1.2

the Río Bravo towns to visually document the border conflict, and resident studio photographers like J. G. García in Laredo and Robert Runyon in Matamoros made photos and photographic postcards of revolutionary events.¹⁴ Passage of the Volstead Act of 1919, fully implemented in 1920, ushered a wave of visitors to Mexican border towns.¹⁵ Lured by the availability of drink that was prohibited in the United States, a tourist economy emerged through the creation of nightclubs, gambling casinos, and other forms of entertainment that complemented the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Prohibition enabled some U.S. owners of these enterprises to relocate operations to Mexican border towns via concessions from Mexican authorities. The Prohibition era ignited population change in the Río Bravo border towns. Acuña, Piedras Negras, and Reynosa all more than doubled in size between 1920 and 1930, and Nuevo Laredo, the largest of the five towns in 1930, increased by half its population (Table 1.1). Only Matamoros saw modest growth during this era, explainable in part because Brownsville, Texas, across the river, did not then actively promote its neighbor’s tourist attractions to potential visitors.¹⁶ Río Bravo border towns, like all Mexican border places, capitalized on the wide-open nature of the era, which was not tamped down until repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and the national censure of casino gambling by Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas in 1935.¹⁷ Regardless of its ultimate fate, Prohibition was the

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Table 1.1 Río Bravo Border Town Populations, 1900–1960 year/ town

matamoros

reynosa

nuevo laredo

piedras negras

villa acuña

1900

8,347

1,915

6,548

7,888

667

1910

7,390

1,475

8,143

8,518

933

1920

9,215

2,107

14,998

6,941

2,423

1930

9,733

4,840

21,636

15,878

5,350

1940

15,699

9,412

28,872

15,663

5,607

1950

45,737

34,076

57,669

27,578

11,372

1960*

92,327

74,140

92,627

48,408

20,048

Arreola and Curtis, The Mexican Border Cities, Table 2.2; Ganster and Lorey, The U.S.Mexican Border into the Twenty-First Century, Table 6.2; Alarcón Cantú, Estructura Urbana en Ciudades Fronterizas, 87, 207.

SOURCES:

*1960 populations are for the city, not the municipio.

Interior view of the Moctezuma Bar in Matamoros during the 1920s. Photographers frequently found patrons willing to pose for a postcard view in border town drinking halls during the American Prohibition era.

FIG. 1.3

Río Bravo Border Towns

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first installment in creating Mexican border town identity to a U.S. national audience. Postcard photographers were part of this process, capturing images of visitors inside so-called wet palaces and representing the landscape of business establishments enabled by what Mexicans called la ley seca (the dry law; Fig. 1.3).

NATU R AL DISASTER S In addition to social events that shaped the border town experience in the first half of the twentieth century, nature proved a disrupting agent, and disasters, then as now, were prime fodder for the photographer’s lens. Chief among these along the Río Bravo were hurricanes and river flooding. Unlike river flooding, which affected almost all of the border towns, hurricanes or tropical cyclones (which could also cause flooding) with their attendant high winds especially affected Matamoros near the Gulf of Mexico, the immediate source of these storms. Matamoros was struck by hurricanes on several occasions during the century, and in 1909, an August storm killed 1500 residents.¹⁸ The cathedral on the plaza was the iconic signature of a storm’s impact because it would, inevitably, level one or both of the belfries of the church. The September 1933 cyclone damaged the cathedral towers, and one photographer printed a before and after image to capture the nature of change in a single postcard (Fig. 1.4). Floods along the Río Bravo were less discriminating, bringing destruction to most of the border towns. Nuevo Laredo was partly inundated on more than ten occasions from the 1900s to the 1950s (Fig. 1.5).¹⁹ Piedras Negras was devastated by the flood of 1922, which stranded the entire population of the town on three streets, the highest points of elevation, where huddled masses were able to escape the backwater flooding that covered the community. Reynosa and Piedras Negras were again affected in 1932, when 500 were left homeless in the former and homes collapsed in the latter, caused by flooding water that undercut adobe foundations.²⁰ By all accounts, the flood of June 1954 is remembered as the most harrowing to many residents. The river crested above sixty feet in Nuevo Laredo, inundating seven blocks into the town from the bridge and ten blocks on either side of Avenida Guerrero, the main street, drowning about one-sixth of the area of the city and damaging 5000 buildings.²¹ Amazingly, there was no loss of life in Nuevo Laredo. In Piedras Negras, flooding resulted in several deaths, and at Acuña thousands of residents were left homeless.²² With the construction of dams on the Río Bravo–Rio Grande above Acuña– Del Rio and downriver from Laredo–Nuevo Laredo in the 1950s, flooding was checked to a certain extent, but when reservoirs behind dams reach a critical

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The cathedral in Matamoros before and after the impact of the hurricane in September 1933.

FIG. 1.4

Guerrero Street in Nuevo Laredo following the June 20, 1922 flood, which reached Plaza Hidalgo some seven blocks from the river. Serrano Studio, 1920s.

FIG. 1.5

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capacity, water was released, and inundation could result. Curiously, the construction of the dams was reason to create postcard views of the structures, but representations of flooding on cards seems to have subsided since 1954. Photojournalists continue to document these disasters, and their images are presented in news reports, but postcard production of the devastations seems to have disappeared. Profiting from the misery of others likely became distasteful within a medium, the postcard, which was increasingly seen as a positive tourist memento.

P OSTWAR TOURISM Although the transition between Prohibition and the years of the Second World  War witnessed some growth in the river border towns, the most significant change in the populations of the towns came after the war and into the 1950s (Table 1.1). Population change was spurred by different factors at different towns. Matamoros and Reynosa, situated in the flat coastal lowland and proximate to river water easily impounded and diverted for irrigated agriculture, profited from the modern cotton boom in the area (cotton cultivation was known here as early as 1900), which was the stimulus that pulled thousands of workers to the cities and their hinterlands to participate in this economy. In 1938, approximately 36,000 hectares of cotton were cultivated around Matamoros; in 1948, 200,000 hectares; and in 1952, the peak year of planting, 425,000 hectares.²³ Accordingly, in 1931 there were four cotton gins in Matamoros, seventy-two by 1953.²⁴ Reynosa benefited from a similar agricultural expansion triggered by the Mexican national government construction of the Marte R. Gómez Dam on the San Juan River, a tributary to the Río Bravo that diverted irrigation water to thousands of acres on the hinterland of the city. At the same time, Reynosa witnessed the construction of the Anzaldúas Canal, a major diversion channel bringing water to fields from the Río Bravo.²⁵ The population of Matamoros increased almost six times from 1940 to 1960. Reynosa grew even faster (Table 1.1). This enormous surge in physical expansion was facilitated in Matamoros and Reynosa because the towns were situated in flat lowlands that accommodated both cotton cultivation and the conversion of land to residential development. Upriver at Nuevo Laredo, population increase was not quite so dramatic. Mexican Laredo had no agricultural hinterland. Instead, it fed off a steady diet of commerce related to increased auto transit to the interior of Mexico and a booming local tourist economy. In November 1945, some 90,000 tourist visas were purchased at the Nuevo Laredo port of entry, and the anticipation was that the number would triple in December of that year, making for “the greatest

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FIG. 1.6 During the 1940s–1950s, Americans flocked to the border seeking escape and recreation. Río Bravo border towns like Reynosa and Matamoros were especially attractive to visitors from nearby Texas locations. Source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times, “Magic Valley and Old Mexico.”

tourist boom the city has ever enjoyed.”²⁶ Piedras Negras and Villa Acuña, compared to the downriver towns, tripled and quadrupled their populations, respectively, between 1940 and 1960, but from much smaller base numbers, so each was still a relatively small town at the end of the 1950s (Table 1.1). What united the five Río Bravo border towns was the explosion of tourism that followed World War II. During the 1940s–1950s, Americans flocked to the border towns seeking escape and recreation, whether shopping, dining, drinking, or sport. Mexican border town establishments in Reynosa and Matamoros made up six of fourteen box ads on the “Where to Go for Entertainment” page of the McAllen, Texas, daily.²⁷ A story about Reynosa’s tourist popularity reported that “the public places in this border city are at the tourist’s orders.”²⁸ Even the Corpus Christi daily paper, issued some 150 miles north of the river settlements, included a separate box ad section called “Mexico via McAllen and Reynosa,” which directed visitors to motels and lodging on the U.S. side and entertainment spots in Mexico.²⁹ Old Mexico was portrayed as the “Playground of the Rio Grande Border . . . Land of Manana [sic]” (Fig. 1.6).

Río Bravo Border Towns

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FIG. 1.7

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Matamoros urban extent and tourist locations, 1910s–1940s.

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Postcards that exhibited views of these towns were part of the border town visiting experience. If the numbers of postcards in my collection are an indication, then the decades of the 1940s and 1950s were the golden era of postcard representations of the Río Bravo border towns. More real photographic postcards were produced during this time than at any other time in the history of these places.

A S E NSE OF PL ACE: G EOGR AP HI C S NA P S HOTS O F TOW NS Before we see close-up, we need perspective to position our view of the Río Bravo border towns. Maps and panoramic postcard images enable a geographic and visual fix, a bird’s-eye view of the general layout of each town and perspective across selected viewsheds of the place. Each border town is cartographically portrayed to highlight those locations that are discussed in the detailed viewscape images that follow in Chapters 4–7.

matamoros Figure 1.7 shows the peculiar geographic position of Matamoros wedged trianglelike between two meanders of the Río Bravo. The historic town center at Plaza Hidalgo is some distance from the apex of the meander legs of the river where Santa Cruz, the earliest watercraft crossing, was situated proximate to the 1926 international bridge. The first railroad bridge crossing in 1910 was at the location called Puente Viejo (Old Bridge) and leads to the town’s rail yard parallel to the river and west of the historic center. In this same area proximate to the river was the city’s waterworks and first electrical generating plant. From the old Santa Cruz station, a mule-car rail line, later converted to a streetcar line, extended south across open land and angled toward the historic center once it intersected the street grid at Calle Sexta. In 1926, the so-called Puente Nuevo (New Bridge), also called the International Bridge and later the Gateway Bridge, was constructed at the point where Fort Brown on the Brownsville side of the river connects to the old Santa Cruz station on the opposite bank. The new bridge brought automobile traffic into Matamoros, which spelled the end of the old streetcar line, no longer evident on a 1936 map of the city.³⁰ The southern edge of Matamoros included several locations familiar to tourists. South and west of the historic center are two sites important to Matamoros visitors, the Old Cemetery and the Plaza de Toros, or bullring. The cemetery, by tradition, was on the edge of town on Calle Independencia at Calle 12. The bullring was also an edge-of-town location, originally west of the historic center at Calle Bravo and Calle 20. Southeast of the historic center is the famous Casa Mata (also Casamata), captured in several postcard images over the period. The

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historic fort was part of an original wall of the city and became a hospital during the Mexican wars of independence.³¹ As Matamoros expanded physically, it filled open land at the apex of the triangle during the 1940s and 1950s. This became an elite residential neighborhood known as Colonia Jardín.³² Its upper-income residential status is affirmed by its easy access to Brownsville via the nearby International Bridge. To the south and southeast of the historic center, beyond the approximate perimeter of what was once the wall of the city, Matamoros sprawled to create industrial suburbs in the 1940s–1950s.³³ By midcentury, the southern outskirts of Matamoros were as much as five miles from the Gateway Bridge crossing, creating a peripheral zone rarely visited by outsiders. Two panoramic postcard views hint at the changed scale and expansive character of mid-twentieth-century Matamoros. Figure 1.8 illustrates an aerial view of Matamoros during the 1940s. This view looks south across the apex of the triangle described above. We can see both legs of the Río Bravo and Matamoros between the legs of the river triangle. The largely empty land between the river legs is beginning to fill in with streets, houses, and other buildings that would become Colonia Jardín. To the left nearest the apex is the Gateway Bridge, and to the right up stream is the Puente Viejo crossing. In the far distance, made starkly visible by the table flat nature of the landscape, is the southern edge of the town. Figure 1.9 is a view looking east along Calle Morelos only a few blocks from Plaza Hidalgo during the 1950s. The bell towers of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Church, the historic aduana, or customs house, to its immediate right, and the tree canopy of the plaza are visible near the center of the image, and a hint of the Río Bravo is seen in the distance behind this view. Beyond Plaza Hidalgo at the upper left—suggesting how distant the historic center is from the crossing to Brownsville—is a water tower across the river in the Texas town. Both the 1940s and 1950s images reinforce the tropical landscape of Matamoros, saturated by an abundance of palms and trees.

reynosa Figure 1.10 illustrates the geographical situation of Reynosa, tucked outside a bend of the Río Bravo, facing the Texas town of Hidalgo on the opposite bank. At the dawn of the twentieth century, Reynosa was a small, plaza-centered town perched on a loma (hill) and connected to a watercraft river crossing approximately one mile from the Río Bravo. The southern edge of the settlement was the line of the Mexican National Railroad, about five blocks from the plaza and just below the loma. This core area around the plaza would become the historic center of the town until the mid-1920s, when Reynosa expanded slightly to the west and especially to the south, jumping the railroad. The area consolidated

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Aerial view of Matamoros during the 1940s illustrating the meander of the Río Bravo and open land in the foreground between the International Bridges with the center of town some distance beyond. W. M. Cline, 1940s. Courtesy of the Terry Christensen Collection.

FIG. 1.8

Panoramic view of the heart of Matamoros during the 1950s, showing Plaza Hidalgo near the center of the image (canopy of trees) surrounded by the cathedral and customs house. México Fotográfico 80.

FIG. 1.9

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FIG. 1.10

Reynosa, urban extent and tourist locations, 1950s.

over the next twenty-five years before the town exploded to the south with the expansion of cotton and the construction of a PEMEX oil and gas refinery that flooded Reynosa with new residents.³⁴ From the Prohibition era forward into the tourist explosion of the 1950s, Reynosa remained consistent, attracting visitors almost exclusively to the shops, clubs, and eateries along the string strip of Calle Zaragoza and proximate streets and blocks (known as the Zona Rosa, or Pink Zone) and the businesses and streets surrounding Plaza Hidalgo. This is reinforced by the postcard imagery, which rarely shows streets or places away from these locations. The only locations outside this zone that appear in postcard views of the era are of the bridge and gateway (known as Calzada del Puente), the plaza de toros, or bullring, positioned on the west edge of town between Calles Matamoros and Guerrero, and

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Bird’s-eye view of the 1920s Reynosa residential zone below the town plaza and looking out across the lowlands toward the Río Bravo.

FIG. 1.11

the panteón viejo, or old cemetery, a wall enclosed space on the western edge of town that was attractive to visitors.³⁵ Although Reynosa maintained a mercado, or market, postcard views of that node are almost nonexistent. By the 1940s–1950s, Calle Hidalgo south of the main plaza emerged as a major commercial street.³⁶ A 1920s postcard view shows the low-density sprawl away from the main plaza at Reynosa and a flat landscape extending to the horizon (Fig. 1.11). Dwellings are constructed of stone with stucco white-washed exteriors or of lumber in simple clapboard form. The masonry structure in the foreground is a substantial building, perhaps located on one of the streets leading from the plaza. In 1926, a metal suspension bridge, the first spanning the Lower Río Bravo, was erected at the crossing to Hidalgo, permitting automobile passage into Reynosa during the height of the Prohibition era.³⁷ Over the ensuing three decades, the string street linking the bridge to the plaza became a focus of intense building with paved streets, tourist attractions, and associated development.³⁸ Figure 1.12 is a panoramic view from the Hidalgo, Texas, side of the river looking southwest across the emerging sprawl of Reynosa, ca. 1930s. Allowing one’s eye to follow the road from the bridge crossing on the Reynosa side, it is clear that even at this date, the string street was spotty with structures, and the built up area of the town was still chiefly concentrated in the historic core north of the railroad track. The Anzaldúas Canal that sparked so much cotton cultivation on Reynosa’s outskirts

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Panoramic view of 1930s Reynosa, a compact settlement connected to the Texas town of Hidalgo across the Río Bravo by the International Bridge, a steel suspension bridge.

FIG. 1.12

was not yet part of the townscape. The vega, or floodplain, of the Río Bravo was still partly cultivated above the bridge. The white line extending from the upper left corner of the image is likely the road to Camargo, an upriver settlement, as it cuts across the level coastal plain.

nuevo laredo Nuevo Laredo was a small town of about 3400 residents in 1880 before it received the railroad crossing that would help transform it into one of the most important towns of the Río Bravo.³⁹ Figure 1.13 illustrates Nuevo Laredo’s site, tucked into a pocket bend of the river opposite Laredo, Texas. Plats of the city in 1881 and 1910 reveal the irregular block pattern of the town site hinged tightly against the south bank of the Río Bravo.⁴⁰ As the town expanded south and west between 1910 and 1920, additions were laid out in a conventional street grid with blocks intersecting one another at ninety-degree angles. The railroad that crossed the Río Bravo connecting Laredo to Nuevo Laredo entered the Mexican border town on the west side in November 1881. The tracks formed the perimeter of the town on the west and south sides.⁴¹ A rail yard, including a roundhouse to service locomotives, would eventually be constructed on the southeast side of town.⁴² In 1889, a new international bridge was inaugurated connecting Laredo to Nuevo Laredo at Guerrero Street to the east of

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the railroad bridge.⁴³ The new bridge accommodated an electric streetcar route shared by the towns. The Nuevo Laredo line extended from the port of entry south along Guerrero, then west terminating at Plaza Monterrey across from the train station and depot.⁴⁴ The Nuevo Laredo line was discontinued ca. 1918.⁴⁵ Several plazas have existed at different times in Nuevo Laredo.⁴⁶ Paz y Echagarray’s 1883 map identifies seven plazas, including the two most popular with twentieth-century visitors, Juárez (the principal plaza) and Hidalgo, each situated along Guerrero, the town’s main street. Like plazas, there have been several market (mercado) nodes in Nuevo Laredo. Two were El Puerto de Liverpool, which was across the street from Plaza Juárez, and Parián Guardia Nacional (also called Mercado de Nuevo Laredo, built in 1885), presently Plaza Hidalgo.⁴⁷

FIG. 1.13 Nuevo Laredo, the largest and most populated Río Bravo border town during the 1940s, showing bridge crossings with Laredo, Texas, and selected tourist locations in the town’s center.

Río Bravo Border Towns

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The Parían burned in 1914, torched by revolutionary forces. In 1919, a new market was built near the gateway on Avenida Guerrero, and in 1947, the present Mercado Maclovio Herrera was constructed at the same site.⁴⁸ The Herrera was the market most frequented by twentieth-century visitors to the city. The only other site outside this area that was likely known to tourists of the era was the plaza de toros (bullring). However, like plazas and markets, there were three different bullrings, each over time located on the southern and western outskirts of the town with the changing expansion of the city.⁴⁹ Two panorama images enable views of Nuevo Laredo. Figure 1.14 is a 1928 vista looking north and northeast from above the train station, likely taken from a water tower.⁵⁰ In the foreground tracks and sidings as well as a stone structure (the original depot) are visible. Beyond are boxcars on a track, and to upper left of center (between two white steam plumes) is the railroad bridge crossing over the Río Bravo. Panning right is the second bullring location east of an open area that would later become Plaza Monterrey. Continuing right is a Mission Revival building that was the second aduana, or customs house, built in 1918, and behind it is a white canopy structure that was the train station at the time. In front of the aduana is a small fence-enclosed garden reception area surrounded by trees, and to the right of it is the Hotel Laredo. In the far background, starting right to left, are visible the pinnacle of the church on the town plaza in Laredo across the river, the multistory Plaza Hotel, and the even taller Hamilton Hotel, lodgings popular with visitors to Nuevo Laredo. Figure 1.15 is a 1950s view again looking north and northeast, from behind a school building in a residential area on the west side of Nuevo Laredo. Beyond the rooftops and canopy of subtropical vegetation that covers the neighborhoods, panning right to the left, are the tower of the Templo Santo Niño on Plaza Juárez and the curving modern gateway port of entry structure built in 1952. Continuing to the left, the “Los Arcos” bridge—so called because of the graceful arches from its original 1921 construction—rebuilt from the 1954 flood— is visible connecting to the U.S. customs facility (white tower) on the Laredo side. In the background on the Laredo side are, right to left, the church tower, Plaza Hotel, and Hamilton Hotel, still visible some three decades later.

piedras negras Piedras Negras, known as Ciudad Porfirio Díaz from 1888 to 1911, emerged as one of the most prosperous and largest of the Río Bravo border towns at the turn of the century but retreated noticeably to become one of the smaller towns by the 1950s. An early railroad gateway in 1883, the line into Mexico chiefly serviced the coal industry south of Piedras Negras, and while it did, in 1892, make connection to the city of Durango, its initial goal of crossing the Sierra Madre Occidental

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FIG. 1.14 Aerial view of Nuevo Laredo looking east and northeast from the railroad yards on the west edge of town in 1928. Carla Muñoz Puente, Photographs and Historical Maps, Luciano Guajardo Collection.

FIG. 1.15 Nuevo Laredo panoramic view looking north and northeast from the west edge of the town only a few miles from the center during the 1950s. México Fotográfico 132.

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FIG. 1.16

Piedras Negras, urban extent and selected locations, 1940s.

Panoramic vista showing the riverside edge of Piedras Negras, looking northwest across the Río Bravo to Eagle Pass, Texas, during the 1910s.

FIG. 1.17

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to link to the port of Mazatlán was never realized.⁵¹ The Mexican International Railroad, affiliated with Colis P. Huntington’s Southern Pacific Railroad, never appeared to achieve the status accorded the Mexican National Railroad, which connected Nuevo Laredo to the capital at Mexico City. In 1909, the Mexican International lost its identity and merged with the Mexican National system, but by then, Nuevo Laredo had already established itself as the principal rail portal in the region. Piedras Negras is situated in the undulating subtropical scrub uplands of the Río Bravo and thus cannot capitalize on an irrigated agricultural hinterland, as did Matamoros and Reynosa. The town has become an important ranching service center, but that industry draws little labor and therefore low population growth.⁵² Nevertheless, Piedras Negras achieved a level of development, especially in the late nineteenth–early twentieth century, when it benefited from its association in name with President of Mexico Porfirio Díaz, and this is mirrored in a spectacular public architecture that is unusual for a provincial locale.⁵³ It would also benefit from the opening of a steel mill in 1938, taking advantage of its proximity to coal and its railroad access.⁵⁴ Figure 1.16 situates the town along the Río Bravo opposite Eagle Pass, Texas. The early plat is slightly longer than wide, oriented directly west of the river and hinging along a rock bank. It faces Eagle Pass to the east, but that town is some distance from the river, across a wide floodplain known locally as la vega. In typical nineteenth-century town form, early Piedras Negras—then called Ciudad Porfirio Díaz—is a grid of perhaps fifteen blocks deep west of the river, and about twenty blocks north south, tight to the Río Bravo. The railroad bridge is located at what was the south end of town ca. 1900, and it is also in this corridor that the customs house and telegraph offices are positioned. A second bridge links the commercial center of Eagle Pass, across la vega, to Calle Juárez and Hidalgo Plaza, the heart of the Mexican border town.⁵⁵ Flanking Hidalgo Plaza on the west is the principal church and, on the north, the municipal center or city hall. From Plaza Hidalgo stretching south for some six to seven blocks is Calle Zaragoza, the main commercial street of the town. As Piedras Negras grew between the 1930s and 1950s, it spilled north and especially southeast. The town began to expand along highways that led to Monclova, the capital of Coahuila, and to Saltillo, the largest city in the state and linked to roads that would connect south to Mexico City. Two panorama photographic postcards reveal aspects of the town site and landscape of Piedras Negras. Figure 1.17 is a 1910s view looking northwest from Piedras Negras across the Río Bravo to Eagle Pass. The foreground shows small clapboard, pitched-roof dwellings and some flat-roof stone stucco structures, as well as enclosed yards interspersed with trees only one or two blocks from

Río Bravo Border Towns

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Panoramic view of Calle Zaragoza, the main street of Piedras Negras, looking south during the 1950s. México Fotográfico 25.

FIG. 1.18

the river. The early wooden bridge linking Garrison Street in Eagle Pass to Calle Juárez in Piedras Negras is seen in the middle ground. This structure would later be replaced by an iron trestle bridge to accommodate autos and pedestrians. On the Texas bank at the end of the bridge are the U.S. customs buildings, and beyond is la vega as the road continues into Eagle Pass on the upper right of the image. Two prominent landmarks in Eagle Pass are the bell tower of the church, and to its left, the stacks of an ice plant, a significant industrial facility found in almost every border town on both sides of the river. Figure 1.18 is a panoramic 1950s view looking south from near Plaza Hidalgo along Calle Zaragoza, the main street of Piedras Negras. Likely snapped from the tower of the cathedral on the plaza, this view illustrates the commercial core along Zaragoza, several buildings in modern architectural styles like the Farmacia Pastor at the lower left, and another farther down, both with streamline moderne façades. The large white low-rise structure on the left along Zaragoza just a block or so beyond the plaza is the Mercado Municipal, which opened in 1950 and replaced the early twentieth-century structure at the same site. In the distance, the main street intersects the railroad corridor, visible by the bridge on the Río Bravo to the upper left. Beyond and in the background near the center of the image is the stack and plant façade of La Consolidada Altos Hornos steel mill.

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villa acuña The smallest and most isolated border settlement on the western fringe of the Río Bravo is the town of Ciudad Acuña, known as Villa Acuña between 1912 and 1957. Acuña had less than 1000 inhabitants until the 1910s and less than 10,000 through the 1940s. Distant from the Mexican interior, the town would not receive a railroad until 1960. Acuña’s hinterland is oriented to ranching, and commercial agriculture has never been important to its economic base. It faces Del Rio across the river and has, from its earliest days, been closely tied economically and socially to the Texas town. Because the Southern Pacific Railroad and a major U.S. highway pass through Del Rio, that town and its connection to Texas and beyond have long sustained Villa Acuña’s tourist viability.

FIG. 1.19

Villa Acuña, urban extent and selected locations, 1940s.

Río Bravo Border Towns

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Figure 1.19 illustrates Villa Acuña’s site and landscape character. Unlike its downstream neighbor, Piedras Negras, the historic core of Acuña does not parallel the river; instead, it pivots on the Río Bravo at its gateway. The town grid, although oriented north–south and east–west, is canted away from the river at its gateway pivot point. Like Piedras Negras, however, a large vega and river terrace separate Acuña from Del Rio, so the American town center is perhaps three miles away from the bridge crossing. Villa Acuña is bisected on its northern reach by the Río Las Vacas, a small tributary to the Río Bravo, and along its western edge by low hills that checked expansion in the early years of the settlement. As a consequence, when Acuña began to grow during the 1920s, it chiefly filled in the zone between the Río Bravo and the hills, and when the town grew again in the 1940s, it jumped the Río Las Vacas and surmounted the hill zone to spill north and west. The southern edge of Villa Acuña follows the floodplain of the Río Bravo, whereas the area west of the hills is part of the floodplain of Las Vacas. These lowlands were farm fields in the 1940s but transformed to colonias (suburbs) by the 1950s. Landmarks of consequence include the gateway crossing, Calle Hidalgo— Acuña’s historic main street and tourist strip—and Plaza Benjamín Canales. The crossing, like all border towns before bridges, was made possible by watercraft. Between 1922 and 1929, wooden, then steel, bridges were erected at the crossing to create a formal gateway into Villa Acuña. The gateway leads immediately to Calle Hidalgo, which parallels Río La Vacas and served as Acuña’s main street and original downtown. Mrs. Crosby’s, the Toltec Café, and other visitor clubs and restaurants are chiefly concentrated along Hidalgo. The single town plaza is located south of Calle Hidalgo in a residential district and thus largely off the tourist path. Figure 1.20 is a panoramic photographic postcard view of Villa Acuña in the 1920s. The vista is looking west above and along Calle Hidalgo with the low hills in the background. The back areas of the buildings on the right are hinged on the south bank of Río Las Vacas, whereas areas to the left fan south of Hidalgo into a residential zone. Structures appear to be a mix of pitched- and flat-roof adobe with stucco, stone, masonry, and clapboard construction common to the era. La Macarena bullring was not yet constructed. Figure 1.21 is a panoramic view that looks east from a point on the hills west of town during the 1950s. The unpaved street in the foreground leading east is Calle Victoria, and the new church cathedral—a large rectangular façade—on the plaza is visible in the distance. Panning left to the center of the image is La Macarena arena, on Calle Madero one block south of Calle Hidalgo, and beyond the silver outline of the international bridge over the Río Bravo. Behind the bridge is la vega and a canopy of trees that covers Del Rio.

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FIG. 1.20

Rooftop view of Calle Hidalgo, Acuña’s main street during the 1920s. México Fotográfico 5.

Panoramic vista of Ciudad Acuña, looking northeast from the hills on the southeast edge of town during the 1950s. México Fotográfico 24.

FIG. 1.21

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2

POSTCARDS

on february 3, 2009, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City launched an exhibit of the distinguished American photographer Walker Evans (1903–1975). Evans earned his reputation as the poet laureate of American photography because much of his work captured the people and places of the Great Depression and townscapes across America. His camera was chiefly focused on the commonplace, and it rendered a powerful humanity to his images of everyday life and lived spaces. The exhibition, however, did not feature any of Evans’s tens of thousands of photographic images that are part of the Metropolitan’s permanent collection; rather, the highlight of the display was Evans’s personal collection of 9,000 postcards accumulated over a lifetime of travel. Evans matured in the early twentieth century, the peak years of the classic postcard era in America. At a young age, Evans began to collect postcards as part of family travels. “Every time my family would take me around for what they thought was my education, to show me the country in a touring car, to go to Illinois, to Massachusetts, I would rush into Woolworth’s and buy all the postcards.”¹ Like his famous photographs, which have been called documentary images, postcards exhibited vernacular subjects in prosaic style, unvarnished and revealing of the everyday landscape around us. Postcards are commercial images that form the critical visual inventory used in this project. During the early twentieth century the postcard became one of the most popular forms of mailed correspondence in history, with billions sent

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around the world. This chapter outlines briefly the story of the postcard as a visual communication artifact. That story needs first to be understood as part of the invention and evolution of popular photography, which promoted the production and consumption of common views and vernacular images. Postcards, certainly real photographic view postcards, are like many forms of documentary photography in that places and daily life are the principal subjects. Further, this chapter assesses the emergence of postcards, types of postcards, postcard photography, and photographers. How postcards became a signifying visual form of Río Bravo Mexican border towns is explored, both through the images themselves and by those who produced them. That examination contextualizes the following chapters, which investigate postcard views of the border towns. In this chapter I also explain the use of postcards from my personal collection, why particular images have been selected, and issues of pictorial composition and image quality.

P OPUL AR PH OTOGR APH Y Photography was a nineteenth-century invention. Most accounts credit Frenchman Louis Jacque Mandé Daguerre’s 1839 creation of the first camera capable of making a photograph. Daguerre’s box camera could channel light through its lens to a copper plate coated in silver that would fix an image on its surface. The so-called daguerreotype became a popular form of image capture, chiefly portraiture, which required a subject to hold still for a long exposure lasting several minutes. Not surprisingly, scenes of place, where control of subject movement was difficult, were rare in the era of daguerreotype photography. Daguerre’s machine, as the device came to be called, was also expensive, selling for $500– $1000 in mid-nineteenth-century New York. Beyond personal family portraits and images of important figures, the earliest public uses of daguerreotype photographs appear to have been as exhibits for industrial fairs and expositions, chiefly because the photograph was considered a machine-made artifact valued for its technical creation and less for its subject representation. An important cultural limitation of the daguerreotype was its singularity. It was a onetime exposure that had to be made on site and could not be reproduced and circulated. This further compromised its popular influence as an invention since it could not be shared easily by the masses.² The path from daguerreotype to roll film, the portable handheld camera, and the mass reproduction of an image would extend a half century. English botanist Henry Fox Talbot perfected the negative-to-positive process for paper prints in 1841, calling it a “calotype.” English sculptor Frederick Scoff Archer invented the wet glass plate negative process in 1848, and it gradually displaced both

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daguerreotype and calotype processes, becoming popular up to 1881. Finally, in 1888, George Eastman invented the flexible, unbreakable, emulsion-coated rolled film from which prints could be made easily and relatively inexpensively, and that achievement ushered in the portable camera and popular photography.³ In the first decades of the twentieth century and coinciding with the boom in postcard popularity, photography expanded. By the 1930s, photography was emerging as a popular art in large measure because the audience for photographs increasingly became a popular one, creating what one historian called a “much-enlarged cultural visibility.”⁴ The growth in circulation of such magazines as Vanity Fair, Cornet, Look, and Life bolstered visual culture because in many respects the subjects of these publications were the photographs, the images; text descriptions were secondary. The relationship between photography and travel, long the domain of popular publications like the National Geographic Magazine, was also stimulated by the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) American Guide Series publications of states and cities illustrated by Farm Security Administration photographs. The images of photographers like Walker Evans captured the vernacular landscape of towns, streets, buildings, and roadside America, suggesting that the everyday was something to be admired.

PHOTOGR APH Y AND MEXICO In the fall of 1840, Fanny Calderón de la Barca (nee Frances Erskine Inglis), the Scottish American wife of Spain’s ambassador to Mexico, visited Chapultepec Park in Mexico City with a small group of friends. Previously, she had corresponded with William Hinckley Prescott, the American antiquarian and historian who had secured for the Calderóns one of Daguerre’s new machines and shipped it to them in Mexico. Fanny stated, “I hope we shall be able to send you Chapultepec, correctly drawn by Nature herself.”⁵ Unfortunately, images from this episode seem not to have survived, testifying, perhaps, to the difficulty of amateurs using the first cameras. Yet, Fanny Calderón de la Barca is credited with being one of the first to photograph Mexico. A century and a half later, one photographic historian proclaimed that only Egypt attracted more photographers than Mexico in the nineteenth century. That allure would extend to the early twentieth century when photographers including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paul Strand, Tina Modotti, and others would find Mexico fertile ground for their representational art.⁶ Mexico, even before the emergence of picture postcards, was already a visually enticing place. Mexico may have been the first place in the world where daguerreotype photography was an eyewitness to war. Unknown photographers accompanying the U.S. forces in their occupation of Saltillo during the Mexican War of 1847–1848

Postcards

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took portraits and even street scenes of towns just eight years after Daguerre’s invention. Daguerreotype photos taken outdoors were unconventional because at the time some 95 percent of daguerreotypes were studio portraits. The photographic clarity of the Saltillo daguerreotypes is compromised by motion that blurred some of those outside images, suggesting again that this early form of photography was a trial venture and often a sideline for dentists and merchants rather than professional photographers.⁷ Despite its early embrace, daguerreotype photography played little role in the visual representation of landscapes and places in Mexico.⁸ Photography in Mexico was furthered by Frenchman André Adolph Disdéri’s 1850s invention, the carte de visite.⁹ Cartes de visite, named after visiting cards that were offered upon introduction, like an early form of business card, would have a much greater impact than daguerreotypes on image capture and distribution in Mexico, as they would around the world. These were diminutive (2 × 4 inches) photographs recorded by a camera with four lenses that made quadruple images. The images on glass plate negatives could be printed on paper, mounted on cardboard, and cut into individual pictures. This invention permitted the first reproduction of a photographic image that could be easily circulated.¹⁰ In 1870s Mexico City, photographers Antíoco Cruces and Luis Campa produced cartes de visite, calling them tarjetas de visita. The subjects of many tarjetas de visita were staged; later subjects were live street scenes of Mexican vendors that became known as Mexican tipos, or types.¹¹ The Mexican types genre may be rooted in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century paintings of so-called castas, or castes, which pictured in drawings and paintings urban laborers and street vendors and which still later became known by the fashion called costumbrista—that is, local and regional types depicted in popular paintings.¹² The Porfiriato (Porfirio Díaz presidential tenure, 1875–1910) spurred photography in Mexico through industrial and commercial enterprise. American William Henry Jackson, who founded a photographic company in Denver specializing in field photographs, was commissioned by the Mexican Central Railway in 1883 to create photographic surveys of landscapes along the railroad corridors that could be used to advertise and promote the rail lines.¹³ Abel Briquet, a French studio photographer, arrived in Mexico in 1883, contracted by the French shipping firm Campagnie Maritime Transatlantique to photograph ports.¹⁴ Both Jackson and Briquet established studios in Mexico City and became some of the first commercial photographers of their era, creating large-format images of scenic and progressive landscapes around the country and selling the photographs to businesses between 1890 and 1910. Briquet even sold some of his images through D. S. Spaulding’s souvenir shop in the capital, and Jackson would later begin selling images to travel enterprises to promote tourism to Mexico.¹⁵

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P OSTCA R DS The history of the postcard dates to the second half of the nineteenth century. Picture postcards—a subset of postcard types—are generally attributed to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, which included sketched scenes of soldiers and battlefield equipment.¹⁶ Between 1890 and 1900, a variant of the earliest picture postcard became popular in Europe and elsewhere. This kind of postcard came to be called gruss aus, or “greetings from.”¹⁷ They were typically colored lithographs in art nouveau style showing local scenes of towns in multiview embellished with flowing vines and flowers (Fig. 2.1). Most gruss aus postcards were printed in Berlin, Saxony, and Bavaria, where Jewish merchants controlled the color printing business.¹⁸ Germany would dominate the color lithography process, printing exquisite cards for most of the world until 1914. Some 75 percent of pre–World War I American postcards—likely hundreds of millions— were printed in Germany and shipped from Hamburg to Hoboken, New Jersey, on the Hamburg-Amerikan Line.¹⁹ Another early picture postcard type in the United States was the so-called private mailing card, which printers and publishers began printing on May 19, 1898, after being given permission to issue commercial postcards; before this time only the government could issue what it called “postal cards.”²⁰ Figure 2.2a illustrates the recto (front) of one of these private postcards produced for the

Gruss aus (greetings from) was an early 1900s style of picture postcard showing local scenes in multiview along with a place name and space for writing a message on the front of the card.

FIG. 2.1

Postcards

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Streets of Mexico, a 1901 midway exhibition at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. This image is one in a series of private mailing cards, an early form of postcard. a, The front (recto) side of the card is an illustrated print view with a space at bottom for message while b, the back (verso) was exclusively for address. FIG. 2.2

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“Streets of Mexico” exhibit at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, in 1901. The verso (back) of this card shows the designation of the private mailing card imprint (Fig. 2.2b). The formation of the Universal Postal Union in 1878 required the verso of every postcard to contain only address information. Thus, in Figure 2.1 the space for the message was on the recto below the town name and to the right of the various scenes; no message was allowed on the verso. The same held true for private mailing cards and other picture postcards produced for the American market until 1907. So-called divided back cards, where the verso included half of the space for message and half for address, first appeared in Europe in 1902–1906 and in the United States in 1907.²¹ This modification allowed the entire space of the recto to be used to accommodate a picture or view. The majority of picture postcards used in this project are view photographic postcards issued in Mexico and the United States between 1900 and the late 1950s. Unlike print postcards that are mass produced mechanically on plates or screens (lithograph, halftone, photolithograph, collotype, and other means), a real photo postcard is produced from a negative on chemically sensitive paper; thus it is a true photograph.²² The photographic postcard became unusually popular in America between 1900 and 1930, although photo postcards continued to be produced into the 1950s in both the United States and Mexico.²³

postcard photography Postcard photographers generally fell into two categories: professional studio photographers and amateurs, including itinerant photographers.²⁴ Professionals typically operated a studio in a single town where they chiefly offered portrait photography and other related photographic services. Postcard photos were rarely a primary service; rather, the category was adopted and marketed as a complement to general photography, including production of images for local printing companies. Amateur photographers of various sorts emerged chiefly in the early twentieth century as technological changes in camera, film, and developing enabled itinerant operators to engage the photographic enterprise. Eastman Kodak pioneered rolled celluloid film and new lightweight handheld cameras, like the Kodak 3A, that were easier for amateurs to operate and more accommodating to low light and fast exposure. Handheld cameras allowed photographers to forego the need for tripods and large-view cameras that used glass plate or sheet-film negatives. Kodak’s 3A models retailed from $25 to $80 and came with a detailed instruction manual. Enlarging equipment was unnecessary because the Kodak 122 roll film produced negatives that were exactly the same size as a standard postcard (3¼ × 5½ inches). In time, even professionals who photographed outdoors began to use these new technologies, like the Kodak

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3A adapted to individual sheet film. Nevertheless, the more proficient photographers favored the expensive sheet-film cameras like the handheld Graflex 3A, which retailed for about $200. Sheet film produced individual negatives from one sheet exposure, which enabled immediate developing of a single print, instead of roll film, which could accommodate many exposures but was not typically developed until a roll was fully exposed.²⁵ Whereas professional photographers with studios and darkrooms could develop negatives to make postcard-sized prints, by 1910 amateurs could acquire Kodak’s R.O.C. [Rochester Optical Company] Postcard Printer, a specially designed box that enabled simple development of negatives in daylight or artificial light on to silver gelatin DOP (developing-out-paper) cut to postcard dimensions. Once an exposed print emerged from the box, the amateur only needed to wash the print and fix for drying to create a photo postcard. While convenient, this process had limitations in labeling postcards, a more sophisticated process professionals could accommodate in a darkroom. Amateurs who used Kodak’s Autographic 3A models could write a short caption onto the negative through a window on the back of the camera, but the quality of labeling was usually inferior to professional methods achieved in a darkroom. Printing the final photographic postcard was generally full frame to paper without margins (also called “full bleed”) or masked to create a white border around the image.²⁶ Professionals, in contrast, used commercial printing machines or crafted custom machines to develop small to large batches of photo postcards in one step. Mexican photographer Eugenio Espino Barros (1883–1978) developed an apparatus of wood and lace that could hold one hundred postcards at one time, enabling them to be washed and fixed automatically in specially designed tanks. He then invented a custom drying rack to accommodate one hundred postcards. The racks could be stacked ten at one time to dry up to one thousand postcards.²⁷

border postcard photographers Assessing information about photographers, professionals as well as amateurs, is a challenging task. The number of scholarly writings about postcard photography and photographers would fill only a small shelf (see the Appendix, “Postcard Writings”). The number of writings about Mexican border postcard photographers is an even smaller universe.²⁸ To shed some light on this obscure field as it relates to the Río Bravo border towns, I compiled a matrix of identifiable photo postcard photographers derived from my collection of photographic postcards for the five towns studied (Table 2.1). The overwhelming majority of the total are individual photographers, some operating their own studios, and two are Mexican photographic postcard companies. The larger towns like Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros appear to have housed

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Table 2.1 Río Bravo Border Town Photo Postcard Photographers, 1900s–1950s*

photographer

matamoros

reynosa

× × ×

×

Abrego Fot. E. Bennevendo Sucs. W. M. Cline

×

La Compañía Industrial Fotográfica (CIF) La Compañía México Fotográfico (MF) Cook Desentis, Jr.

×

×

× ×

× ×

×

×

×

× ×

Esquivel García García L.

piedras negras

villa acuña

×

×

×

×

×

×

E. Espino Barros Escuela Ignacio Zaragoza

nuevo laredo

Jacobs Studio

× × × × × × × ×

Janavaras

×

×

×

Herman Lippe Studio M. M. López

×

×

×

Munguía Fot.

×

×

Nacional Studio

×

PostaMex R. Runyon

×

× ×

Sandoval Fot. Serrano Studio L. O. She Fot. J. C. Villareal

×

×

×

Violeta

×

R. L. Warren Studio E. V. Wilkey SOURCE:

×

Daniel D. Arreola Postcard Collection.

* Includes photographers who produced photo postcards not illustrated in text but whose photographic postcards are part of my collection.

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Photographers in Laredo, Texas, as elsewhere along the border, were sometimes also producers of photographic postcards. Both Esquivel and García operated studios in the American border town and frequently ventured into Nuevo Laredo to make images that became postcard views. Source: Laredo, Texas, Telephone Directory, October 1949.

FIG. 2.3

FIG. 2.4 García became a major producer of Río Bravo border town postcard views. This 1950s multiview showcases nine of his more popular photographic postcard images in a single mosaic. García L. Fot.

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greater numbers of postcard photographers than smaller places like Villa Acuña and Piedras Negras. I researched the city and telephone directories for Laredo, Texas (see the Bibliography), and found advertising and telephone and address entries for several of the photographers in Nuevo Laredo, including García, Esquivel, Jacobs, and Serrano between 1920 and 1950. García Studio may have been one of the longest established photography businesses in the city because photographs from the 1910s and 1920s bear the García imprint.²⁹ Advertisements for García and Esquivel studios appeared in a 1949 directory, but neither mentioned postcard photography (Fig. 2.3). In Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and Matamoros, another photographer, García L., was a prolific postcard photographer in the midtwentieth century. A 1950s multiview photo postcard showing nine separate photo postcard images in miniature suggests that García L. postcard production became a commercial success in that decade, which coincided with the most popular era of border town tourism in the twentieth century (Fig. 2.4). Some amateur or itinerant postcard photographers only identified their images through ink stamps on the verso of a card (Fig. 2.5). Other photo postcards are not attributable to any known photographer or do not bear any identifiable authorship, reinforcing the possibility that amateurs may have begun to produce photo postcards and then abandoned the enterprise, leaving no records of their effort save the images themselves. At least three of the Río Bravo border town postcard photographers have sufficient recorded information about their businesses that profiles can be assembled. The individual photographers included Robert Runyon, who resided in Brownsville, Texas, and produced postcards of Matamoros; Robert L. Warren, who operated a studio in Del Rio, Texas, and documented Villa Acuña through his postcards; and Walter M. Cline, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who traveled to the border region to make photo postcards. Perhaps the most important company to produce photo postcards of the border and all of Mexico was La Compañía México Fotográfico. Its history and methods for producing photo postcards highlight the role of a company in this process.

FIG. 2.5 Detail of the verso top of a photographic postcard illustrating the ink stamp for Juan C. Villarreal, fotógrafo of Matamoros. More often, photographic postcards lack any information about a photographer.

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individual postcard photographers: runyon, warren, and cline Robert Runyon (1881–1968) may be the most celebrated and best-documented border postcard photographer.³⁰ A native of Kentucky, Runyon lived in New Orleans, Houston, and, by 1909, Brownsville, Texas, where he was employed by the Gulf Coast News & Hotel Company, which operated a lunchroom and curio shop at the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railway station. Brownsville was a town of about 10,000, seat of Cameron County, home to a deactivated army post—Fort Brown—and across the river from the Mexican border town of Matamoros. Runyon, an avid amateur photographer, purchased a Kodak 3A camera before arriving in Brownsville and decided to make his own postcards to sell in the curio shop where he worked. He contacted the C. V. Williams Photograph Company in Bloomington, Indiana, to learn more about the postcard business. The Williams Company’s slogan was “An Artistic Local View Card Is in a Class by Itself,” and it offered to make view print postcards from Runyon’s photographs of Brownsville area scenes for six dollars per thousand. Between 1910 and 1911, Runyon ordered some 35,000 printed postcards made from his photographs by three different companies, including the Curt Teich Company of Chicago, the largest manufacturer of print postcards in the United States. In addition, Runyon began to market his own locally produced photo postcards in small batches to drug stores, cigar stores, and other retailers in the towns of the Rio Grande Valley, including Mission, McAllen, Mercedes, San Benito, and, of course, Brownsville.³¹ Like many local photographers of the era, Runyon eventually opened a fullservice studio in Brownsville to offer film development and printing and portrait photography for individuals and landscape photography for real estate development companies. With the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution and battles that ensued in Matamoros beginning in 1913, Runyon struck upon a new locale to photograph. His images sold to local and regional newspapers, and ultimately, they became a subject for his postcard views. He produced postcards that became especially popular with the U.S. troops that were stationed in Brownsville during the revolutionary episode. In 1913, Runyon married Amelia Leonor Medrano Longoria, daughter of a respected Matamoros middle-class family, and that connection allowed Runyon to establish his credentials in the Mexican border town. Circa 1925, with the help of his brother-in-law, he opened a curio store in Matamoros—the Basket Place—strategically located on Plaza Hidalgo to intercept tourist visitors, and Runyon began to make photographic postcards of scenes in the town that could be sold at his shop. The curio shop

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remained profitable—selling French perfumes as well as postcards and curios— into the late 1930s and eventually was sold to one of the Mexican employees when Runyon became city manager of Brownsville.³² Robert L. Warren and his wife Lucile Malone Warren came to Del Rio, Texas, from Gainesville, Texas, in 1941. Del Rio was a town of about 12,000 in 1940. It was located on the Southern Pacific Sunset Limited railroad line connecting Los Angeles and New Orleans. A year after the Warrens arrived, the U.S. Army Air Corps opened Laughlin Field east of Del Rio to train bomber pilots; by the 1950s, Laughlin was a U.S. Air Force base.³³ The Warrens purchased the Lippe Studio established in Del Rio by German immigrant Herman Lippe in 1921.³⁴ Lippe had been making photographs of the local area, including early photographic postcard images of Villa Acuña across the river (see Fig. 6.15). Robert Warren began making his own photographs and photographic postcards of the local area, distributing them to local retailers for sale. Unlike Runyon, Warren appears to have made only real photo postcards, which he identified on the recto by title and on the verso as a genuine photograph (Fig. 2.6a and Fig. 2.6b). Warren was also a pilot and owned a four-passenger Cessna, which enabled him and Mrs. Warren, whom he trained to be a photographer, to make aerial postcard images of the Mexican border town.³⁵ Warren Studio developed into the principal full-service photographic center for Del Rio and the surrounding area of Val Verde County. The Warrens processed and printed film, contracted to local businesses for their photographic needs, developed a commercial portrait studio, and sold camera and film supplies. Lucile Warren, who graduated from the University of Oklahoma with an arts degree, was self-taught in the hand coloring in oil of portrait photographs, a style fashionable in the 1950s, and she passed on the craft to employee Rosantina Calvetti, nee Salazar.³⁶ Rosantina Calvetti, born in Villa Acuña, moved with her family to Del Rio in the 1950s, where her father worked as a waiter in Mrs. Crosby’s Café, a popular establishment in the Mexican border town. Rosantina went to work for the Warrens, learned how to be a photographer, and inherited the Warren Studio in 1996.³⁷ Walter M. Cline (1873–1941) was one of the most successful photographer entrepreneurs in modern American postcard history. A native of Ohio, Cline developed an early interest in photography and practiced the craft in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Birmingham, Alabama, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he took up residence in 1904, working for several local photography studios. In 1910, Cline bought the E. L. Mudge Studio in Chattanooga renaming it Cline Studio. He concentrated on scenic views of the Chattanooga area, claiming to have made 50,000 images and selling some 3000 photographs to advertising agencies in the city.³⁸

Postcards

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a, Front (recto) and b, back (verso) views of a 1940s Villa Acuña photographic postcard produced by R. L. Warren in Del Rio, Texas, signifying that the image is a “genuine photograph.”

FIG. 2.6

a, Front (recto) and b, back (verso) views of a 1940s Piedras Negras photographic postcard produced by W. M. Cline in Chattanooga, Tennessee, announcing that the image is “a photograph card.”

FIG. 2.7

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In 1938, Cline formed the W. M. Cline Company to accommodate his photography business as a production, processing, and manufacturing operation. Cline and his son Walter Jr. traveled across the South and around the country to make photographs, many of which were converted to real photographic postcards (Fig. 2.7a and Fig. 2.7b). Walter Cline, Sr., died tragically in 1941 while cleaning one of his muzzleloading antique rifles; he was an acknowledged expert in antique weapons and published several books on the subject. Operation of the Cline Company fell to Walter Cline, Jr., who learned the profession from his father. In 1952, the Cline Company opened a new 7200-square-foot manufacturing plant in Chattanooga to place the wholesale photo finishing, transparency processing, and photographic postcard business under a single roof. The postcard production facility alone had a capacity to print 6000 photo postcards an hour, drawing on an archive of some 30,000 negatives depicting scenes, buildings, and points of interest in twenty-four states and Mexico.³⁹

the postcard company: la compañía méxico fotográfico La Compañía México Fotográfico was founded in 1925 by Demetrio Sánchez Ortega (1878–1979). Sánchez Ortega was born in the state of Veracruz and at an early age moved to Mexico City to work as a traveling salesman for Cervecería Moctezuma, a major brewery. In his travels Sánchez Ortega came into regular contact with the contemporary postcards of Mexico sold at railroad depots and produced by photographers Alfred Briquet, William Henry Jackson, C. B. Waite, Hugo Brehme, and others.⁴⁰ Sánchez Ortega organized a production staff and launched México Fotográfico to produce and market photographic postcard views of the entire Republic of Mexico (Fig. 2.8). He appears to have been strongly influenced by the popularity of Hugo Brehme’s romantic photographic images in his México Pintoresco, published in 1923.⁴¹ Sánchez Ortega’s vision coincided as well with the earliest Mexican government efforts to promote a national tourism industry. México Fotográfico became recognized by its distinctive “MF” logo (which can be seen in Fig. 2.8) and by the fact that all of its postcards were photographic images. Sánchez Ortega felt strongly that photo images most faithfully represented the variety and diversity of Mexican scenes, monuments, and peoples. Many of the earliest postcards produced were of views in and around Mexico City.⁴² México Fotográfico contracted to independent photographers called agentes viajeros (traveling agents) to insure that it received images from all corners of the country. In turn, contract arrangements with local and regional photographers facilitated the redistribution of the images once negatives mailed to Mexico City were developed, printed as photographic postcards, and mailed back to locales

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for retail sale.⁴³ México Fotográfico advertised through its own postcards how potential photographers could benefit from these contractual arrangements, and the company would assist in practical training via mailed materials and in the sale of cameras and film (Fig. 2.9). An early sales strategy to promote the purchase of postcards was to make available small albums to mount and display MF photo cards and to advise on the collection of images for one’s state or city (Fig. 2.10). Sánchez Ortega was also successful in having Excélsior, the most influential Mexico City newspaper, publish México Fotográfico images in its travel and tourism promotional weekly Jueves de Excélsior during the late 1920s. México Fotográfico photos for Nuevo Laredo and Piedras Negras appeared in 1928.⁴⁴ México Fotográfico emerged as the most successful vendor of Mexico postcards in the country between the late 1920s and into the 1950s. During the late 1930s and into the 1940s and 1950s, México Fotográfico began to issue handtinted photographic postcards, which gained great popularity (Fig. 2.11). The company continued to operate successfully as it transitioned to color print, or chrome, postcards in 1967 under the name México Fotocolor. With that shift, México Fotográfico discontinued its production of real photographic postcards.⁴⁵ Its legacy, however, is a prodigious production of hundreds of thousands of photo postcard images of the country, from small towns to large cities, including monuments and landscapes, a visual repository of cultural heritage captured over some four decades in the guise of the simple yet revealing photographic postcard.

RÍO B R AVO BOR DER TOWN PH OTO G R AP H I C P OSTCAR DS The Daniel D. Arreola Collection includes more than 7000 postcards of Mexican border towns. Some 1800 of that total are postcards of the Río Bravo towns, where the combined images of Matamoros—at greater than 500—and Nuevo Laredo—at 400—account for more than half of the total number. Reynosa and Villa Acuña each number about 300, and Piedras Negras accounts for slightly more than 200. Close to two-thirds of the postcards for the Río Bravo towns are real photographs, the principal format used for this project. One hundred and eighty-six images from the 1800 postcards of the Río Bravo towns were selected to narrate and illustrate the content for this book. The collection for the Río Bravo towns, as well as for other border locations, is organized by town and then by topical divisions within each town. For example, there are sections for gateways, streets, public buildings, and spaces including plazas, tourist activities, and domestic life. A collector’s categories can be highly variable, depending on the purpose and potential use of the materials. As a geographer, my focus is places and people within places, regardless of the

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FIG. 2.8 Verso of a 1940s Reynosa photographic postcard produced by México Fotográfico (MF) advertising its postcards to consumers in Mexico. The advertisement trumpets the role of postcard views in celebrating Mexican culture and places.

FIG. 2.9 Verso of a 1920s photographic postcard that advertises cameras and photography products sold by the Mexican postcard company México Fotográfico. México Fotográfico used these ads to attract photographers who could be self-taught to produce postcard images that would be distributed by the company.

FIG. 2.10 México Fotográfico enticed consumers to collect postcards of their home states in Mexico, which could be handsomely stored in a small album for only six pesos. Source: Uribe Eguiluz, Una Aproximación a La Compañía México Fotográfico, fig. 11.

FIG. 2.11 México Fotográfico produced tinted postcards for some of its photographic postcards of Río Bravo border towns. This 1950s view of Matamoros has a blue sky, a beige building façade, and several cars tinted red and blue. México Fotográfico 15.

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type of postcard or date of production. While this project uses chiefly photographic postcards, my collection includes other types and time periods beyond the frameworks established for this exercise, and a select few print cards are used in this book to illustrate particular scenes. Real photographic postcards were chiefly selected for this project not only because they represent the greater part of my collection but also because photographs tend to have greater fidelity in representing place. The subjects in some types of print postcards are modified and streamlined when they are reproduced from a photograph to a mechanical print. For example, graphic artists employed by a print postcard company might generalize a street scene, so that, for example, building façades are simplified to eliminate detail or automobiles, or pedestrians might be added to enhance activity.⁴⁶ In contrast, photographic postcard image quality can be varied according to the talents of the photographer, the composition of the image, or the time of day a photograph was made. Photographers like those discussed above generally produced higher-quality photographic postcards than photographic stringers, who contracted to large companies and produced images of varied quality. The images reproduced for this project were selected first for the representation of the subject in the postcard and second for the quality of the photographic or mechanical image. This does not mean that the quality of an image is unimportant, but the subject of the postcard is most critical because this work is about how the repetitive imagery of places comes to socially shape the popular view of that place. This repetitive dimension is an important check on the accuracy of place representation since many views over time of the same scene reinforce the authenticity of what is seen. Attribution is highly varied, and frequently a postcard is unsigned by photographer or printmaker. An advanced collector can compensate for this failing by owning multiple images of similar composition where one postcard is signed and others that have similar title script can be assigned authorship with some confidence. For example, several photographic postcards in my Matamoros collection are unsigned, but the script is precisely the same as one that is signed, and thus I can speculate that the photographer is the same for both images. Figure 2.12 is a photographic postcard attributed to Abrego, and the distinctive script label “Matamoros, Mex.” is exactly the same style found in many other postcards used in this project, thus allowing me to attribute these images to Abrego, who photographed during the 1920s (see Figs. 3.12, 3.15, 3.16, 3.17, 7.10 and 7.26). In other instances when a postcard is unsigned but numbered, an experienced collector can attribute authorship because of a distinctive numbering system. Figure 2.13 is a recognized postcard made from an image known to be one

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of Robert Runyon’s photographs.⁴⁷ That number style is exactly the same style found on one unsigned postcard image used in this project and can be assigned to Runyon with confidence (see Fig. 8.9). Attaching dates to postcard images, like attribution, can be a challenge. On rare occasions, a postcard photographer will date the image (see, e.g., Figs. 1.4, 3.13, 5.9, 8.2, 8.12). Posted cards can sometimes show dates on the back of the card, but the date of posting may not coincide with the image. For print postcards collectors often refer to accepted dates associated with the types of postcards known to have appeared at particular times.⁴⁸ Photographic postcards can be dated by the type of paper used to print the image and the known dates of production for a type which is typically signaled by the style of stamp box on the verso.⁴⁹ Often the easiest way to date an image is to read the picture for content, including the types of automobiles, known construction dates for buildings, dress style, and many other types of signals that can be used as clues about time in place. In this project, unless the photographer precisely dates a postcard, I have used all of the dating strategies mentioned above and assigned dates in the following decadal ranges: 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s. This project is primarily concerned with seeing how townscape, the built landscape of the border cities, is visible through postcard imagery. Geographers and urban scholars have privileged this form of inquiry for many generations, although not necessarily using postcard imagery to interpret townscape.⁵⁰ In

Matamoros postcard photographer Abrego, who worked in the 1920s, can be identified by his distinctive letter labeling style.

FIG. 2.12

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this project there were particular kinds of views selected to illustrate how spaces in and around the border towns were represented. While varied postcard views are shown, three general types dominate. Street scenes are the most common type and arguably the richest form of postcard view for this story. Streets capture the nature and pulse of a place, and these types of views reveal a host of elements critical to my purpose, from activity levels to building types and landscape density. Landmarks, typically buildings both public and private, are a second type of postcard view. Structures in border towns and their architectural features telegraphed sophistication to visitors, creating a sense of urban modernity. A third type of view captured local residents in pose or at work. People make place, and human representation has been a constant in many forms of art for generations. In the border towns, postcard views that highlight people enable visitors and consumers of postcard images to glimpse the natives of a city who through their presence reinforce the authenticity of place. A few examples illustrate these selective view types. Figure 2.14, a 1920s view along Calle Sexta in Matamoros, exemplifies the enormous popularity of street views in postcard imagery. One can see automobiles as well as an animal-drawn cart and the faint outlines of the streetcar rails set in the middle of the unpaved street. Raised concrete sidewalks populated by local residents are separated from the street by curbside drainage and appear lined by electrical poles. The building fabric is clearly masonry, and the structures are substantial two-story constructions with high doorways at street level and iron balconies above. Signage is visible to the naked eye in the foreground and legible with magnification down the avenue. These varied elements allow a researcher to catalog and interpret the look of a place—its landscape personality. Figure 2.15 is a 1930s image showing the public market on Calle Zaragoza, the main street of Piedras Negras. The postcard highlights a single building, a common format focused on a civic landmark. Like streets, landmarks were popular representations in postcard photography because they exposed the material prosperity of a community. The market in Piedras Negras is photographed from a building rooftop across the street so that the entire neoclassical façade of the structure is captured. A plaque below the tower and above the front balcony makes visible the date of construction, 1908, and the angled view enables one to see how the building is set back from the street and fronted with lawn and shade trees, popular landscape enhancements during the early twentieth-century City Beautiful movement.⁵¹ Electrical and telephone lines cross the face of the image, announcing the progressive communication infrastructure of this otherwise remote and provincial border town. Figure 2.16 is a 1900s image of a family owned and operated fruit stand in Matamoros. This image illustrates the staged-format postcard view type showing

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FIG. 2.13 Robert Runyon, a Brownsville, Texas, photographer and postcard producer, can sometimes be identified by his distinctive numbering system for cards. This is a 1910s view— Runyon No. 189—of the International Bridge connecting Brownsville to Matamoros.

FIG. 2.14

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Street views, like this image of Calle Sexta in 1920s Matamoros, were perhaps the most popular type of postcard view of the Río Bravo border towns.

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FIG. 2.15 Landmark buildings, especially exhibiting distinctive architectural styles, were another popular type of postcard view of the Río Bravo border towns. This shows the mercado, or public market, on Calle Zaragoza in Piedras Negras sometime in the 1930s. México Fotográfico 8.

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local residents in Río Bravo border towns. Group as well as individual posing was yet another very popular style of postcard representation in the early decades of the twentieth century.⁵² Handheld cameras, a novelty at this time, meant that views of people could be composed and snapped with relative ease, although image clarity was sometimes sacrificed; the figure of the young girl at the left of this image is out of focus. Some twenty males and three females of various ages face the camera, revealing dress styles of the era, and some individuals hold samples of the fruit vended at the stand behind and shaded by a thatch awning. Inside the stand, shelved and hanging curios can be seen, suggesting how small businesses rarely specialized in only one product, instead offering many possible items to customers.

Posed views of individuals and groups were yet another popular postcard view in the Río Bravo towns. This image captures a 1900s family in front of its fruit and curio stand in Matamoros.

FIG. 2.16

Postcards

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3

GATEWAYS

río bravo border towns were distinctive river settlements, and that condition made necessary a means to access the Mexican town from American soil. From the earliest town founding simple watercraft ferried residents, and later visitors, between Mexican and American banks of the river. At some locations, cables were strung across the river, and shallow draft flat-bottom watercraft would be pulled along the cables to steady and secure passage across swift currents, as seen in 1887 when the Texas & Coahuila Ferry Company operated between Eagle Pass, Texas, and Ciudad Porfirio Díaz.¹ By the late nineteenth century, bridge construction began to link towns on opposite sides of the river. The first bridges were low, wooden-planked structures, set on shallow piers anchored to the riverbed. Figure 3.1 illustrates the early wooden bridge that connected Villa Acuña to Del Rio during the early 1920s. A posted speed limit suggests that autos could use the bridge, and a stop sign likely signaled to auto crossers that U.S. customs inspectors could be on duty. A single electric light dangles from the right side of the plain arch to illuminate the posted bills describing (in Spanish and English) conditions of bridge use for crossers. This low-water bridge served Villa Acuña–Del Rio until an iron trestle bridge was erected in 1929.² Figure 3.2 shows the provisional wooden plank bridge erected to link pedestrian and auto traffic between Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass before the iron bridge was completed. An ornate International Bridge replaced the wooden

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3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

3.6

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bridge in the early twentieth century (Fig. 3.3). Fashioned in iron with a wooden plank bed and set in concrete piers high above the normal flow of the river, this bridge was typical of structures of the era. Pedestrian walkways are segregated on either side of the roadbed. Local residents gather at the Mexican side of the bridge, and animal-drawn cart traffic is visible at the opposite end. A sign in Spanish states that it is prohibited to trot horses. During the Prohibition era, the volume of traffic to towns increased many times over (Fig. 3.4). New bridges began to appear, and Reynosa-Hidalgo was one of the first to erect a suspension bridge in 1926 called by Mexicans “El Puente Colgante.”³ The single-span bridge was anchored by horseshoe-shaped concrete foundations on each bank, which supported metal towers with lights for night illumination and cables that suspended an iron girder wooden plank roadbed (Fig. 3.5). At Villa Acuña–Del Rio, a new iron trestle bridge was contracted in 1922 and completed in 1929. The original charter was formed by Citizens Bridge Company of Del Rio, Texas, and in 1927 it was contracted for joint use with Cía del Puente Urbano Internacional, Acuña, S.A., Coahuila (Fig. 3.6).⁴ The bridge was sold to the cities of Del Rio and Acuña in 1954. The towns shared income derived from bridge tolls and cost for operation and maintenance.⁵ By the 1930s, bridges improved to serve increased auto traffic. Figure 3.7 shows the same iron trestle crossing between Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass pictured in Figure 3.3. The roadbed is now paved, and a canopied gateway is positioned on the Mexican side to monitor traffic and collect tolls. Billboards advertising Mexican beer and American shoes are set at street level to the left, and a piece

A provisional wooden bridge linked Piedras Negras to Eagle Pass circa 1910. View looks northwest across river to Eagle Pass.

FIG. 3.2

FIG. 3.3 The International Bridge, a steel structure that segregated vehicle and pedestrian traffic, replaced the provisional wooden bridge at Piedras Negras–Eagle Pass in the first decade of the twentieth century. L. O. She Fot. 1910s. FIG. 3.4 The Prohibition era (1919–1933) increased American auto traffic across Río Bravo bridges into Mexico, as seen in this 1920s view of the International Bridge joining Reynosa to Hidalgo. FIG. 3.5 The 1926 International Bridge at Reynosa-Hidalgo, called “El Puente Colgante” in Mexico, was the first suspension bridge on the Río Bravo. E. V. Wilkey. FIG. 3.6 The Citizens Bridge Company and the Cía del Puente Urbano Internacional became joint owners of the Citizens Bridge, an iron trestle bridge constructed between Villa Acuña and Del Rio in 1929. Herman Lippe, 1920s.

Gateways

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of a welcome banner is visible on the right of the postcard image. Traffic congestion at some crossings resulted in the segregation of inbound and outbound lanes to facilitate access. Figure 3.8 shows the garita (gate) at Reynosa during the 1950s. Mexican immigration offices in the central structure are flanked by gateway tollbooths and curio stores that were positioned nearest the gate to attract last-chance souvenir buyers. An arrow painted on the central building directs return traffic in the right lane to the Texas border town of Hidalgo.

GATEWAY MATAMOROS Visual representation of Matamoros dates from 1846, when American military forces under Zachary Taylor captured the town during the Mexican War. Early engravings were strangely exaggerated representations, showing a city skyline with multiple domes and cupolas and a background of lofty mountains, likely a lithographer’s confusion with the capital of Mexico City.⁶ The first accurate photographic views of the town were made by Prussian-born Louis de Planque, who opened a studio in Matamoros during the 1860s and began making carte de visite scenes in the local area.⁷ De Planque fixed what are, arguably, the first photographic images of the river-crossing points: the Levee Street landing in Brownsville in 1864–1865 and the portage at Santa Cruz on the Mexican bank of the river in 1866.⁸ Over the next seven decades, this crossing would become the gateway to Matamoros, a landscape that opened the door to one of the earliest Río Bravo border town experiences.

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FIG. 3.7 An improved iron trestle bridge (see the previous bridge in Fig. 3.3) linking Piedras Negras–Eagle Pass in the 1930s included a paved roadbed and a canopy over the International Bridge Gate on the Mexican side. México Fotográfico 36.

FIG. 3.8

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Garita Juárez at the Reynosa end of El Puente Colgante. García L. Fot., 1950s.

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The water crossing from Brownsville to Santa Cruz was the first step in the process of visiting Matamoros. In the 1870s, on land that was the first commons, or pasture, used by Matamoros residents from the opposite bank to graze their cattle, Emilio Forto constructed what became known as the “Boardwalk to Mexico.” Forto purchased the Brownsville & New York Ferry Company from Charles Stillman, founder of Brownsville, and built the Boardwalk from Levee Street to the water’s edge. The Boardwalk evolved to be a miniature town, two blocks long, draped by oleander, banana, and orange trees, and lined with shops patronized by passengers waiting to cross to Mexico.⁹ Described on the eve of its destruction when the Puente Nuevo (New Bridge) was about to be constructed at the site in late 1920s, one resident recalled, “One may dine, drink, buy a week’s supply of groceries, purchase a colorful blanket, an unusual vase; one may have his picture made, his fortune told, his health inspected, his teeth examined, his passport filled out, his shoes repaired, his money changed for Mexican coin, or his shoes shined.”¹⁰ The Boardwalk extended across the shallow river edge to a small bar, where canoes would board and launch for the short crossing to the Mexican bank. The return passage to Brownsville from Santa Cruz is made down a steep plank path. Women wearing heavy coats, suggesting a winter visit, pose for the photographer as they prepare to board the canoe for the crossing. The ferry company had three or four of these canoes operating, moving passengers from bank to bank.¹¹ On the distant shore are clustered the shops and structures of Brownsville’s Boardwalk, including the customs building with USIS (United States Immigration Service) emblazoned on its roof. To the left in the postcard image on the American side are three billboards advertising Velvet Tobacco, Velva Syrup, and Star Tobacco. Already aboard and sitting to the left and right ends of the canoe are what appear to be Mexican passengers, illustrating that the crossing was used by local residents as well as tourist visitors. Crossing fare was a nickel, or six centavos.

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FIG. 3.9

Ferry from Brownsville to Santa Cruz, 1910s.

FIG. 3.10

Ferry from Santa Cruz to Brownsville, 1910s.

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FIG. 3.11

FIG. 3.12

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Immigration office, Matamoros, 1930s.

Santa Cruz station, Matamoros, 1920s. Attributed to Abrego Fot.

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Notwithstanding the many postcards labeled “Matamoros,” the landing and transport connection made once visitors arrived on Mexican soil was in the suburban village of Santa Cruz. The landing at Santa Cruz appeared on maps of Matamoros as early as 1846, and as “Vieja de la Estación de Santa Cruz” on maps during the 1870s.¹² The site was also called “El Vado” [The Crossing, or Ford] de Santa Cruz,” ca. 1848.¹³ An 1878 Plano de la Estación de Sta. Cruz shows about a dozen structures clustered at the point of land where the Río Bravo bends between Brownsville and Matamoros.¹⁴ The immigration office featured in the postcard image was the official port of entry authority at the site after the Puente Nuevo, or Gateway Bridge, was completed in 1926, and by then the area that had been Santa Cruz had been annexed to the city of Matamoros. Officials regulated passage by checking passports for foreigners and enforcing commerce laws. Local residents at Santa Cruz included operators of the Ferrocarril Urbano de Matamoros, initially a mule-car system that transported passengers in closed coach rail cars pulled by animal power, then later by gasoline motor–powered streetcars. The photographic postcard is a Prohibition era view likely captured from the roof of the car barn that shows the Buckhorn Bar and a streetcar exiting the station for Matamoros along one of two rail alignments. A large billboard advertises Carta Blanca, a popular Mexican beer.

Gateways

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Known locally as a tranvía de mula (mule streetcar), the animal-powered transport system was the principal means of access from the Santa Cruz station to the plaza and market in Matamoros. The mule-car system was operating as early as the 1870s and evident on many early maps and illustrated histories of Matamoros.¹⁵ Animal-powered transport systems were widespread across urban Mexico in the late nineteenth century.¹⁶ The rail system extended from Santa Cruz to the center of Matamoros parallel to the west branch of the Río Bravo until it reached a point on the northern edge of the street grid of the city (see Fig. 1.7). At Calle Sexta (Sixth Street) just above Calle Allende, the line turned south ten blocks toward Plaza Hidalgo. At the northwest corner of the plaza the line turned west on Calle Comercio and ran three blocks to Calle Nueve (Ninth Street), where it turned north. One block north, the line turned east again on Calle Abasolo past the Mercado at the northwest corner of Calles Nueve and Abasolo. The streetcar ran two blocks east on Calle Abasolo then turned north on Calle Siete (Seventh Street) for seven blocks, where it intersected Calle Allende and again turned parallel to the river on its return to Santa Cruz.¹⁷

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FIG. 3.13

FIG. 3.14

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Mule car, Matamoros, 1907.

Matamoros y Santa Cruz mule car, Santa Cruz, 1910s.

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FIG. 3.15

FIG. 3.16

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Santa Cruz streetcar barn, Santa Cruz, 1920s. Attributed to Abrego Fot.

Matamoros y Santa Cruz streetcar, Santa Cruz, 1920s. Attributed to Abrego Fot.

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In 1908, Matamoros and Brownsville crafted a plan to electrify the animalpowered transport systems serving the two towns, running the lines across the Puente Viejo (Old Bridge), which was to open in 1910.¹⁸ Matamoros was developing a steam-generating electrical plant along the west branch of the river, using wood as fuel.¹⁹ The electric-streetcar system never materialized. Instead, Matamoros discontinued the mule-streetcar system, and by the mid 1920s, gasoline engine–powered streetcars were used on the existing rail lines.²⁰ The streetcar barn is visible adjoining the immigration office to its left in one postcard image. A station attendant is seated on the porch. What appears to be a telephone line extends from a pole outside the fenced office yard, suggesting that the office is in contact with Matamoros. A covered seating area between the office and barn is visible with benches for waiting passengers. Two car operators stand proudly on either side of the car that is inside the barn. Streetcars could operate at night, as evidenced by the headlight at the top front of the car. The Santa Cruz landing and Río Bravo are immediately behind the barn. To the right are the porch fronts of other buildings at the station. The Matamoros y Santa Cruz streetcars of this era were unusual in comparison to electric streetcars found in most cities because they were powered by gasoline motors, not electrified cables, like trolleys. The small cars, as pictured in the postcard image, were fitted with a motor that transferred traction to the steel wheels on rails. Cars were enclosed with side entries and windows in the passenger compartment that would enable air to circulate. Streetcar motormen and conductors were naturally pleased to pose for photographers next to a car. A single passenger is seated inside, and a local shoeshine boy and his dog await patrons.

Gateways

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Modified streetcars, tranvías, were crafted by attaching a car cab to an automobile chassis and power train. Tranvías are entered from behind, and the cab is enclosed, with glass windows and set slightly higher above the rails than in earlier streetcars. Passengers are accommodated on bench seats that are aligned to each side of the interior cabin. In this postcard, an advertising banner displays the bullfights for the Plaza de Toros in Matamoros on one vehicle; bullring seats in the shade (sombra) are one peso, in the sun (sol) fifty centavos. The gentleman at the front of the vehicle in a tie is the operador (driver), and the individual behind is the cobrador (literally, copper collector—the conductor). A truck-like version of the tranvía is pictured in the second postcard image. The automobile character of this vehicle is even more pronounced with a hood covering a larger motor and fenders over the steel wheels front and back. Windows fold up and down on the exterior of the cabin rather than lifting as in the previous example. Operator and conductor as well as a full complement of passengers are ready to depart.

GAT EWAY NUEVO L AREDO Before bridges, Nuevo Laredo and Laredo, like all towns on the Río Bravo, were connected by watercraft called chanales that plied the river.²¹ At one time cables anchored to wooden towers on each side of the river allowed flat boats to be pulled from shore to shore.²² The city of Laredo owned this early ferry service.²³ In 1880, Mexican president Porfirio Díaz granted a concession to the Mexican National Railroad Company to extend a line from Nuevo Laredo to Mexico City, and the Texas Mexican Railroad connected Laredo to Corpus Christi, Texas, sealing an international route.²⁴ As a result, the first bridge, a railroad span, across the Río Bravo was erected in 1881 and later named to honor Díaz.²⁵ That first bridge launched what was the earliest tourist travel by rail across the Río Bravo into the heartland of Mexico. Early promotional brochures and guides touted this as the “Laredo Route” of The Tropical Tours to Toltec Towns in Mexico.²⁶ Over the next three-quarters of a century, not only would the bridges linking Los Dos Laredos (the two Laredos) cement a physical bond, the connections would also promote the development of each place and funnel thousands of American visitors through Laredo to Nuevo Laredo and beyond, earning the American border town the sobriquet “The Gateway to Mexico.”

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FIG. 3.17

Motorized tranvía, Matamoros y Santa Cruz, 1920s. Attributed to Abrego Fot.

FIG. 3.18

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Motorized tranvía, Matamoros, 1920s.

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FIG. 3.19

FIG. 3.20

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Crossing the International Bridge, Laredo–Nuevo Laredo, 1900s.

Cyclone damage to the International Bridge, Nuevo Laredo, 1900s.

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A second international crossing—the foot and wagon bridge—spanned the Río Bravo in 1889, bringing Laredo and Nuevo Laredo into a new relationship. The city of Laredo, previously the sole proprietor of the official ferry service at the location, made an agreement with the International Bridge and Tramway Company of Laredo and New York to license the construction of a bridge. The company paid the city $5000 per year for the right to collect tolls. The seven-span steel truss bridge built by the Smith Bridge Company of Toledo, Ohio, was 810 feet long and 28 feet wide. On April 6, 1889, an inaugural celebration attracted five thousand residents from both Laredo and Nuevo Laredo who danced on the new bridge and consumed thirty kegs of free beer.²⁷ Two postcards from this early era show the bridge in operation and after a disastrous tornado. One image with wider perspective illustrates three women in the foreground as they approach the bridge—one carrying a parasol and another about to open hers—and in the background, a carriage and pedestrian crossing the bridge from Nuevo Laredo. Visible are the guardhouse and tollbooth on the Laredo side. The message on the card describes the toll being five cents each way. To the right of the bridge a narrow island divides the middle of the Río Bravo, and to the left of the bridge is a chanale crossing the river; although the official city-sponsored service was closed when the bridge was opened, private watercraft continued to ferry crossers. In the background right is the tower of the Parián Guardia Nacional city market on Avenida Guerrero in Nuevo Laredo some seven blocks from the port of entry. A second postcard image is seen from the island in the river and shows two damaged spans of the bridge nearest the Mexican shore. On April 28, 1905, a cyclone ravaged Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, causing much destruction and some death in each town. For twenty-eight terrifying minutes, violent wind, rain, and hail pummeled the two Laredos, causing extensive damage, especially to homes of the poor in each community. But not even professionally constructed dwellings escaped some destruction. The roofs of two prominent hotels in Laredo, including the Hamilton, a multistoried structure, were blown off, and one resident in Laredo witnessed his front porch separated from his house and pitched into the air, seemingly disappearing from the face of the earth. The porch, badly damaged, was later recovered across the river in Nuevo Laredo.²⁸

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Prior to the erection of the International Bridge in 1889, Nuevo Laredo had launched its own mule-car transit on November 19, 1886, connecting the railroad station to the Plaza Guardia Nacional. There was never an equivalent animaldrawn transit system in Laredo. Instead, the Laredo Improvement Company, chartered in 1888 to build a tramway system, contracted the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company in New York to build an electric streetcar system in Laredo in 1889. The streetcar system operated under the Laredo Electric and Railway Company, which had purchased rights from the Laredo Improvement Company.²⁹ In Laredo, streetcars were launched on January 27, 1890, and on March 12 of the same year they were extended over the International Bridge to Nuevo Laredo.³⁰ Whereas there are images of this electric streetcar system in Laredo, there is, according to one rail historian, no image yet revealed of the electric streetcar operation in Nuevo Laredo.³¹ The line is illustrated, however, in a bird’s-eye view engraving dated 1892 and described in a historical account of the era.³² The line in Nuevo Laredo ran from the International Bridge some seven blocks south on Avenida Guerrero, then nine blocks west on Calle Arteaga to the customs house (aduana) at Plaza de Mayo across from the railroad depot (see the route map on Fig. 1.13). This was the earliest electric railway in Mexico, ten years ahead of the system that would be built in Mexico City.³³ The Nuevo Laredo electric streetcar system operated until about 1918. Complications between the owners of the streetcar line and the owners of the bridge discontinued operation in the Mexican town.³⁴ Following the damage to the International Bridge in 1905, the structure was repaired and reopened. The first image shows the International Bridge, ca. 1900s. The view looks across the river from Laredo to Nuevo Laredo. The tower of the Mercado is visible in the distance. The second postcard image shows civilian soldiers lined up along the bridge at the Nuevo Laredo entrance during the Mexican Revolution on January 1, 1914, three months before Victoriano Huerta’s forces burned Nuevo Laredo. Visible to the left of center are the faint yet distinctive rail lines of the earliest streetcar transport to service the two Laredos across the International Bridge, as described above.

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FIG. 3.21

International Bridge, Laredo–Nuevo Laredo, 1900s.

FIG. 3.22

International Bridge, Nuevo Laredo, January 1, 1914.

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FIG. 3.23

Temporary crossing for the new Los Arcos International Bridge, Nuevo Laredo, 1920s.

FIG. 3.24

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Bridge and immigration office, Nuevo Laredo, 1930s. México Fotográfico 59.

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The International Bridge weathered the flood of September 1919 but mysteriously caught fire (or was torched) on April 25, 1920, and several spans of the steel trestle nearest the American side were destroyed.³⁵ Almost immediately, the chanales began to appear to accommodate crossers, but within three days of the fire the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers quickly constructed a temporary low wooden bridge to be used until demolition of the old International Bridge was complete and a new bridge was finished. The first postcard shows the temporary bridge downstream and the graceful arches of the new concrete bridge known in Mexico as Puente de Los Arcos (Arches Bridge), viewed from the Laredo side.³⁶ The Río Bravo hugs the south bank and a large vega, or floodplain, is evident along the north, or American, bank. In the background is Nuevo Laredo. To the left is the spire of the Templo Santo Niño on Plaza Juárez, and to the right steam can be seen from the electrical generating plant near the river and only a few blocks south. The new bridge opened on Washington’s Birthday, 1922, to great fanfare, but the excitement was short-lived because in June of the same year it was tested by a river rise of some forty-four feet, which destroyed parts of the Mexican section. Repairs were made. Ten years later in 1932, another flood, with a rise of fifty-two feet, destroyed several spans of the steel trestle railroad bridge upstream, and pieces of that structure floating downstream inflicted damage to the Los Arcos International Bridge. Again, repairs were made.³⁷ The garita (gate) was a smaller world within the larger world of the gateway bridge landscape. Here pedestrians as well as vehicles were monitored for entry into Nuevo Laredo. Tolls were collected and papers secured if passage beyond the border free zone was intended. The tinted postcard image is a view taken from a building roof proximate to the garita looking north across the International Bridge to Laredo. To the right are a casa de cambio (money exchange house) and then the tollbooth bordered by a sidewalk guardrail to direct pedestrians to the cashier’s window. Pedestrians are seen walking toward Laredo and U.S. Customs, the pitched roof building on the right across the bridge. Across the road from the tollbooth is its equivalent for auto and vehicular traffic, positioned at the end of a small landscaped island. This kiosk is open to traffic entering Nuevo Laredo as well as exiting, so tolls may have been collected in both directions. Left of the kiosk and across the roadbed is la oficina de migración, or immigration office, defined by the standard and Mexican flag. Loiterers as well as crossers fill out the scene, giving life to the small world that is the gateway to Nuevo Laredo.

Gateways

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Tourism in Mexico gathered steam in the late 1920s at the height of post-Revolution reconstruction and the nationalization of foreign-controlled industries under President Lázaro Cárdenas.³⁸ Success depended greatly on cooperation between Mexican promotional efforts launched by the federal government and American interests in the travel industry. Critical as well were good hard surface roads in Mexico because the new industry pivoted on automobile visitors, a different clientele than the train travelers of the previous generation.³⁹ Completion of the Pan American Highway in 1936 brought the spotlight to Laredo and Nuevo Laredo because the international crossing on the Rio Grande–Río Bravo was the shortest route to Mexico City. In 1928, Mexico streamlined its protocol for entering Mexico by car. Passport, proof of vaccination, and the heavy bond required to bring a private automobile into the country were dropped in favor of a simple tourist visa.⁴⁰ As a consequence, visits to Mexico jumped, and between August 1935 and August 1936 nearly two million tourists entered through Nuevo Laredo.⁴¹ A postcard image shows the Pan American proclamation “One for all, all for one” and the dedication of a mosaic map of the Americas and plaques honoring the international round table meetings convened in Texas, which were unveiled near the middle of the International Bridge on April 14, 1935. American and Mexican flags are draped from the monument across bunting declaring “Welcome” and flanked by a Texan in western dress and a Mexican in charro regalia, standing under their respective American and Mexican eagles mounted on the tops of the marker. The metal fence railing, removable in the event of high water over the bridge, is a new feature to the international crossing following the 1932 flood (cf. Fig. 3.24).⁴² On July 4, 1941, 592 cars carrying 2,368 persons clogged the International Bridge from the Mexican garita across the span to the Convent Street entrance on the American side and stretched twelve blocks east in Laredo to Moctezuma Street. “Nothing like this was ever witnessed in Laredo before,” reported a local resident.⁴³ The scene was captured by a local photographer and printed as a popular postcard of the time. The view looks back to Nuevo Laredo and the large Lotería Nacional (National Lottery) neon sign prominently featured to the left of the garita along with similar signage barely visible in the background following Avenida Guerrero. Local residents, tourists, and other pedestrians, including U.S. military personnel, are seen strolling the bridge.

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FIG. 3.25

FIG. 3.26

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Pan American Highway Bridge Dedication, Nuevo Laredo, 1935.

Traffic jam on the International Bridge, Laredo, July 4, 1941.

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FIG. 3.27 “Laredo, Gateway to Mexico,” gateway promotion, 1944. Courtesy of the Luciano Guajardo Collection, Laredo Public Library.

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Automobile congestion on Río Bravo bridges was, perhaps, uncommon in the 1940s, but bridges as points of celebration have a long history, especially between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. Since 1898, populations from the two towns have been meeting on the river spans to demonstrate “hands across the border.” In 1934, for example, the thirty-sixth annual Washington Birthday celebration was commemorated on the International Bridge. Mexican officials from Nuevo Laredo and American dignitaries from Laredo met at the international boundary monument near the midpoint of the bridge. The respective officials, accompanied by musical bands—the Mexican playing the “Himno Nacional” and the American playing the “Star Spangled Banner”—greeted one another at the border monument, a gesture of their abiding friendship as neighbors. Delegates and their entourages then marched to Laredo City Hall to witness a parade, followed by a gala bullfight in Nuevo Laredo. For days surrounding the consummate event on the bridge, a host of activities including concerts, prizefights, horse races, and exhibitions were scheduled in each town.⁴⁴ Laredo had been promoting itself as “The Great International Gateway of the Two Republics” since the first bridges crossed the Río Bravo connecting to Nuevo Laredo in 1881 and 1889.⁴⁵ A half-century later that moniker became a permanent slogan, and a cavalcade of booster writing began to trumpet the condition. Chambers of commerce and the local governments of both Laredo and Nuevo Laredo combined efforts to bring the notion to fruition with the publication of The Gateway, a handsome volume with half-tone plates of local scenes by Serrano, a Laredo photographic studio, and sharp illustrations by Graphic Arts Engraving Company of San Antonio.⁴⁶ The title page to this promotional work called Laredo “The Gateway-to-Mexico” and “The International Play Ground of the Border Country.” Amado Gonzalez Palacios, presidente (mayor) of Nuevo Laredo, referred to his city as “The Gateway to the United States.” What cemented this connection, of course, was what one broadside called the “Beautiful Inter-American Bridge.” In fact, the bridge and the crossing were about the only mention given to Nuevo Laredo in guidebooks during this period.⁴⁷ Anita Brenner’s acclaimed Your Mexican Holiday (1932) failed to acknowledge Nuevo Laredo altogether. The need to embellish the image of Nuevo Laredo was real because, even when guidebooks of the era referenced the Mexican town, inevitably it was labeled “a border city with much American influence,” or a “typical border town.”⁴⁸ It is not surprising then, that promotional imagery would use exotic icons like palm trees and hint at the stereotypical romance of a slouching Mexican wrapped in a serape, capped by a tilted sombrero, and strumming a guitar, serenading a senorita in charra costume.

Gateways

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At two times during the era, proposals appeared to erect an additional bridge connecting Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. In 1934 the U.S. government was solicited by business interests in Laredo to consider building a new bridge, and in 1940, the national government in Mexico promoted an additional span.⁴⁹ Neither of these proposals gained traction. On June 28–29, 1954, a massive flood destroyed the International Bridge known to Mexicans as Puente de Los Arcos when the Río Bravo crested at nearly sixty-two feet; whole sections of both towns were underwater.⁵⁰ For some two and one-half years, the two Laredos were joined by a pontoon bridge until a new concrete and steel structure was completed in December 1956.⁵¹ The bridge was 1050 feet long and 42 feet wide, included generous pedestrian sidewalks, metal guardrails, and tall light standards. A new oficina de migración (immigration office) appeared on the Nuevo Laredo side, a two-story concrete pillbox and tower that permitted traffic to pass under it onto Avenida Guerrero. This was the most modern gateway on the Río Bravo when it opened, coinciding with a time when border towns may have been at their tourist zenith.

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FIG. 3.28

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New International Bridge and garita, Laredo–Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. Attributed to Escuela Ignacio Zaragoza 42.

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FIG. 4.1 A street scene in 1900s Matamoros illustrates chiefly single-story stone structures crowded close to the unpaved avenue, typical of early Río Bravo border towns.

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4

STREETS

past the gateway the anatomy of the Río Bravo border town transitions to a main street, often identified in Spanish as the town’s calle principal. For some towns like Matamoros, the transition is greatly extended because the main street is not immediately encountered once the gateway has been navigated; in fact, it is miles away. At Piedras Negras, a visitor must negotiate the town’s plaza before engaging the main street. Reynosa’s main street is a string that meanders lazily from the gateway toward the town center. Still other towns like Villa Acuña and Nuevo Laredo have main streets that are instantly encountered at the gateway; there is, effectively, no transition. Thus, variations of border main streets characterize the second stage of the tourist path. Historically, border main streets were more residential than they were by the midtwentieth century. The calle principal was lined by homes and only sprinkled with businesses. Figure 4.1 illustrates a principal street in Matamoros, ca. 1900s. There is a notable absence of commercial signage, although businesses are discernible. Following a model that is at least medieval, residents operated small shops out of their homes, so some of the doorways seen in this early view are possibly neighborhood stores with residents typically dwelling in the same building behind the street front. Bullock pulling carts piled high with sugarcane, an early crop grown in the hinterlands of Matamoros, are seen lined up at curbside along the dirt street. The postcard message relates how most buildings in the border town are single-story and streets and sidewalks are narrow.

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Calle Hidalgo, Villa Acuña’s main street in the 1920s, highlights the popularity of early automobiles in Río Bravo border towns. Attributed to Herman Lippe.

FIG. 4.2

Matamoros’s main street, Calle Sexta, was a busy commercial artery by the 1940s. México Fotográfico 32.

FIG. 4.3

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The introduction of the automobile changed the streetscape of border towns. While some border residents who could afford autos may have purchased vehicles across the river in American border towns, by the 1920s, automobiles were available in Mexico through American manufacturing subsidiaries like Ford, which began operations in Mexico City in 1925, and General Motors, which opened in 1938.¹ Figure 4.2 shows Calle Hidalgo, Villa Acuña’s principal drag during the 1920s. Beyond the presence of cars, there are more signs of business as well as business signs. Signage, however, is typically made of painted boards; it is not yet electrified although power poles are now part of the townscape. Buildings are masonry as well as stucco covering stone or adobe, some twostory, and the streets appear unpaved although sidewalks are curbed in concrete. A pitched roof canopy covers a manned single gasoline pump on the left, and just beyond is an arrow sign warning “Danger Drive Slow” when pulling into the filling station. Main streets are commercial arteries by the fourth decade of the twentieth century. Figure 4.3 captures Calle Sexta, Matamoros’s main street, at the height of morning rush (9 a.m. by the street clock). Cars, pedestrians—mostly men and boys—and a bus and a bicyclist are frozen in motion in this view from the intersection of Calle Gonzalez and Sexta on the northwest corner of Plaza Hidalgo. Street and building signs are a mix of neon, popular during this period, and older wood-painted boards, including an arrow pointing to Brownsville. Electrical wires are draped along and crisscross the street. Many buildings (compared to the street view in Fig. 4.1) are multistoried, a gentleman is leaning out the upper floor window on the right of the image, and an American flag—likely belonging to the Yturria store on Calle Abasolo, owned by families in Matamoros and Brownsville—is flapping in the tropical breeze above a building on the left.²

Streets

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In Figure 4.4, by contrast to the hustle of Matamoros, Calle Porfirio [Díaz], also known as Calle del Puente (Bridge Street), in Reynosa is captured on a calm 1950s morning. This wide, paved main street is part of the string strip that winds between the bridge and main plaza located on a hill where the church tower is situated in the background of the image. Street signs forecast the true nature of this street compared with Figure 4.3. This main street is a tourist path flanked by eateries, liquor stores, and a money exchange house. One merchant, his wife, and children are seen sweeping the sidewalk and street in front of El Nopal, having arranged furniture and curios for the gringos who will descend on the border town before day’s end. A large neon sign for Carta Blanca beer is perched atop Joe’s Place, a popular entertainment venue for day-tripping visitors, at the apex of the street. Main streets were centers of commerce for local residents as well as visitors. Further, in some border towns, parades and civic events transpired on these streets like the Good Neighbor Parades each October in Villa Acuña along Hidalgo and Main Street in Del Rio, and the Charro Days parades along main streets in Brownsville and Matamoros.³ Calles principales were therefore significant to the local community as well as the tourist visitor. Two Río Bravo border towns are selected as vignettes to illustrate how the principal streets evolved at different locations. Piedras Negras and Nuevo Laredo were two of the most heavily trafficked border locations, and their main streets are explained below.

MA IN STREET PIEDR AS NEGR AS Calle Zaragoza, named after a Texas-Mexican hero of the Wars of Independence from Spain, is the calle principal of Piedras Negras, also known as Ciudad Porfirio Díaz from 1888 to 1911. Zaragoza becomes the main street for the border town three blocks in from the bridge crossing and one block south as it intersects Calle Matamoros on the southeast corner of Plaza Hidalgo (see Fig. 1.16). Along seven blocks from that intersection, Calle Zaragoza evolved over some five decades from a chiefly residential street in its early years to a busy and prosperous commercial avenue by the middle of the twentieth century.⁴ Postcard image density for Zaragoza is sufficiently high to enable a serial view of this street, allowing us to bear witness to the transforming main street of this Río Bravo border town.

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FIG. 4.4

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Calle Porfirio [Díaz] was a tourist string street in 1950s Reynosa’s Zona Rosa. México Fotográfico 36.

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FIG. 4.5

Calle Zaragoza, intersecting with Calle Juárez, Piedras Negras, 1910s. L. O. She Fot.

FIG. 4.6

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Calle Zaragoza, looking north toward Calle Fuente, Piedras Negras, 1910s.

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Calle Zaragoza was residential with some commercial activity early in the twentieth century. The first postcard view captures the street near the intersection with Calle Juárez looking north. To the right is the open edge of Plaza Hidalgo with tree branches extending into the street. The decorative structure on right beyond the plaza is the presidencia municipal, or city hall. The street is unpaved, yet there are curbs and narrow sidewalks along the fronts of dwellings on left. Not visible to the left behind the three-story house is the parroquia, or cathedral, of the town, facing the plaza. Typical of small towns across Mexico, prestige and high land value is attached to central locations, and proximity to the church and plaza were considered the peak areas.⁵ This is mirrored in two homes on the left of the postcard image. These dwellings are two and three stories high with pitched roofs; the houses are constructed of cut limestone called sillar, which was probably quarried in the area, and embellished by milled wood balconies at least one of which appears to be Queen Anne period style. The materials for this balcony may very well have been imported from the United States via the railroad connection that afforded such luxuries along the borderland frontier. The horse-drawn carriage in front of one home is further suggestion of elite status because most Mexicans of the time used mule- and oxen-drawn carts; horses were a measure of affluence. The wealth evident in this block of Zaragoza is in marked contrast to the dwellings beyond that are more in keeping with traditional Mexican flat-roofed structures of adobe and stone.⁶ The second postcard view shows the main street looking north along Zaragoza toward Calle Fuente, one block north of the train station on the south edge of town. To the left is the French Second Empire–inspired aduana, or customs house. The street is unpaved, but there are wide sidewalks, telephone poles, scattered ornamental vegetation, horse-drawn carriages, and automobiles, giving the center of the city a sense of cosmopolitan identity most would not associate with a provincial border town. The infrastructure and architectural improvements seen are largely the consequence of the town changing its name to Ciudad Porfirio Díaz in 1888, to honor then-strongman President Porfirio Díaz and the political patronage that flowed north with that alignment.⁷ The fact that the town was one of the early railroad pivot points on the Río Bravo, connecting it north and south, further enhanced its potential and appeal as its aduana was an important source of revenue.⁸

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Another signature of Piedras Negras’s urbane identity is seen in the statue of Miguel Hidalgo, priest and inspirational figure for the Mexican wars for independence, planted at the intersection of Calles Zaragoza and Matamoros, the north entrance to the calle principal of the border town. Monuments to heroic personalities have been a mark of European cities for centuries, and this statue in Piedras Negras, which had reverted to its previous name by 1911, may be one of the earliest in a Mexican border town. Statues placed in public parks and plazas are a recognized practice, but positioning them in streets like chess pieces was not common along the northern frontier during this early era. President Porfirio Díaz decreed in 1877 that statues of Mexican heroes be placed along the Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City.⁹ Given Díaz’s influence in the border town that bore his name, it is perhaps fitting and appropriate that this Río Bravo settlement alone would be the first to mimic the capital. As Calle Zaragoza transformed to a commercial street, older adobe and stone construction yielded to brick. In 1905, forty-one structures, representing 39 percent of all buildings that fronted the seven-block stretch of Zaragoza from Calle Matamoros to Calle Fuente, were built of brick.¹⁰ The second postcard image shows the preponderance of brick buildings, several two stories high with iron balconies, along a part of the street one block south of Calle Matamoros nearest the plaza. On the right under the awning is a wooden sign that reads Ferreteria Trueba y Pardó (Trueba and Pardó Hardware Store) with Michelin Tire advertisements flanking the sign. Beyond on the same side of the street is a curbside gasoline pump.

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FIG. 4.7

FIG. 4.8

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Hidalgo Monument, Piedras Negras, 1920s.

Calle Zaragoza, Piedras Negras, 1920s. Munguía Fot.

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Calle Zaragoza, looking north between Calle Guerrero and Calle Allende, Piedras Negras, 1910s. L. O. She Fot.

FIG. 4.9

FIG. 4.10

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Calle Zaragoza, looking north between Calle Guerrero and Calle Rayon, Piedras Negras, 1910s.

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Testifying to Calle Zaragoza’s main street popularity, the first postcard view looks north between Calles Guerrero and Allende, ca. 1910s. To the right is a break in the street line of buildings and several leafless trees. This is the setback property that included the town market (see Fig. 2.15), with a bevy of horse carts parked in front of this important commercial house. Across the street on the left of the image are a series of independent commercial properties like La Barata, an inexpensive clothing store, and visible beyond it, La Bola de Oro. Shoeshine boys are posed at the lower left, and one has found a patron, perhaps an American soldier (see the cap and leggings) stationed at Fort Duncan in Eagle Pass and visiting the Mexican border town. In the background at right, and several blocks away at the corner of Calles Zaragoza and Juárez, is the tower of the presidencia municipal. The full façade of the municipal palace is seen in Figure 2.7a. The second postcard captures another view looking north on Zaragoza but a few blocks south of the previous image. The photographer is positioned between Calles Guerrero and Rayon. The multiple-balconied building on the right shows up on a 1905 Sanborn Fire Insurance map, and the second building on the right appears in a 1920s postcard image as the Banco Fronterizo. The street is crowded with horses, animal-drawn carts, and early automobiles, testifying to a transition era between transport forms. The street is not paved, electric poles are scattered along both sides of Zaragoza, and several pedestrians appear frozen as they gaze toward the camera.

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These postcard views of Zaragoza were taken some three decades apart from the same block between Calles Guerrero and Allende with the setback of the market property on the right side of the images. The first view was likely taken during Prohibition, and businesses on the immediate left are clearly drinking establishments—La Central Cantina and Club de Mexico. The former has separate entrances for the café and the cantina (bar), and the latter has a separate “Ladies Entrance,” where upstanding women who are not accompanied by a male can enter without being characterized as a prostitute. By the 1950s, the second postcard view, Zaragoza is paved. There are modern light standards and a tangle of overhead electrical wires. Drinking establishments are still part of the scene, but neon signage beckons to a diverse retail clientele. Down the street in the background is the tall bell tower of the cathedral, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, built in the late 1940s to replace an earlier church and still a beacon visible around town and across the river in Eagle Pass.

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FIG. 4.11

Calle Zaragoza, looking north, Piedras Negras, 1920s. México Fotográfico 70.

FIG. 4.12

Calle Zaragoza, looking north, Piedras Negras, 1950s. México Fotográfico 22.

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FIG. 4.13 Guerrero Street, Nuevo Laredo, ca. 1915. Courtesy of the General Photographic Collection #072–1865, University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.

FIG. 4.14

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Avenida Guerrero, Nuevo Laredo, 1920s. México Fotográfico 57.

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MA IN STR EET NUEVO L AR EDO Avenida Guerrero has been the main street of Nuevo Laredo since 1881, when its name first appeared on maps, replacing its former name, Calle Lucero.¹¹ It is without peer as the longest and most diverse calle principal among the Río Bravo border towns. In 1931, a promotional volume proclaimed Guerrero and its extension, the Laredo-Monterrey Highway, the longest paved tangent roadway in the world, forty-five miles in a straight line.¹² For some fourteen blocks from the gateway, Guerrero bisects the heart of Nuevo Laredo, touching its major plazas, and a stream of retail establishments crowd every block on both sides of the street. Since the 1930s, Avenida Guerrero has been a tourist strip, especially in its first seven blocks from the port of entry, giving visitors access to Plazas Juárez and Hidalgo as well as the principal market of the town’s modern era, Mercado Maclovio Herrera. After it was burned in 1914 by revolutionary forces, Nuevo Laredo was rebuilt and witnessed repair of its central district in a short time. The first image illustrates a view along Guerrero looking north toward the International Bridge, ca. 1915. Like all Río Bravo main streets, Avenida Guerrero was first a residential area, shown here with traditional flat-roofed dwellings hugging the unpaved street, creating a narrow throughway with elevated sidewalks only blocks from the bridge visible at the end of the avenue. The second image is a view along Guerrero but several blocks further south than the first view and snapped during the 1920s. While the narrow condition of the street is evident still, there are also clues—tracks and an overhead trolley cable—to the early electric-streetcar system that was, apparently, discontinued ca. 1918. Guerrero here is emerging from its residential incarnation to a transformed commercial street with businesses suggestive of the Prohibition era (the money exchange on the left and the dancing club on the right). The iron trestle International Bridge is no longer visible at the street’s end, having been replaced in 1921 with La Puente de Los Arcos. On the far horizon, however, is the distinctive façade of the Ursuline Convent in Laredo across the river, a landmark that survived until it was demolished and replaced with a U.S. customs building, ca. 1940.¹³

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In 1938, as part of a larger remodeling of the border city, a grand plan to rebuild the gateway entrances to Nuevo Laredo was drafted by a Mexican federal agency.¹⁴ The vision was in keeping with the recent 1936 opening of the Pan American Highway linking the border to Mexico City and with an effort to streamline and modernize access and egress through Nuevo Laredo. The traffic circulation modifications called for a new auto bridge at Avenida Lerdo south of Avenida Guerrero, as well as street widening, medians, and curbing. The plan was never implemented in full, but one piece of the proposal called for a widening of Guerrero to forty-eight feet to improve the flow of traffic, both automotive and pedestrian. Figure 4.15 shows Avenida Guerrero looking north to the canopy gateway crossing in the 1940s and the expanded street width. Plaza Juárez is the block break to the right of the image, the street is paved, and businesses boast neon signs (Power’s and C.O.D.) and other lighted advertising (Carta Blanca) of the era. In the distance across the river are the Hamilton and Plaza Hotels to the left of center and the cupola of the landmark Ursuline Convent just visible on the right. Figure 4.16 shows a similar view along Avenida Guerrero, again looking north to the newly remodeled gateway in the late 1950s. The new Mercado Maclovio Herrera, completed in 1947 with angled-to-the-curb parking, stands to the left, and single-story businesses with neonlighted signs crowd the right side of the image. A traffic officer stands in the street holding back several pedestrians who are watching and waiting for the photographer to make his photo so they can cross the street to the market, where shoppers gather on the sidewalk. At the apex of the photo image are the pillbox-like garita and migración offices—now blocking any view of Laredo across the river—that were originally built in 1952, then reconstructed in 1955–1956 following the 1954 flood that ripped away the older Los Arcos Bridge.

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FIG. 4.15

Avenida Guerrero, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. Attributed to Desentis, Jr., 1412.

FIG. 4.16

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Avenida Guerrero, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. García L. Fot., 508.

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Important businesses along Avenida Guerrero, looking south, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. México Fotográfico 112.

FIG. 4.17

FIG. 4.18

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Tourist shops along Avenida Guerrero, looking south, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. García L. Fot., 504.

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Two views show the first business blocks south of the gate and the wide street setbacks inherited from the 1938 plan described above. The first view shows a block of stores on the left including what appear to be curio stores for tourists—Estrella Curios, Acapulco Curio Shop, and Casa Muñoz Zapateria, the last two businesses with employees standing in doorways, posing for the photographer. On the right of the photograph are 1950s autos parked diagonally in front of the Mercado Maclovio Herrera, which replaced an older market in 1947, and beyond on the same side of the street is the Tienda de Ropa, a two-story structure with a neon deer sign in front. The street is paved, and sidewalks are elevated. The second image showcases the business block seen in Figure 4.17 (notice the edge of the Casa Muñoz sign), but with greater clarity for the left side of the street. Vega’s Curio Store, El Porvenir (selling leather and cashmere), La Violeta, La India, and Joyeria Venecia were all businesses oriented to tourists. The density of tourist retail in this view testifies to the growth of visitors to 1950s Nuevo Laredo, arguably the golden age of border tourism. Two-toned autos, popular during the era, are visible on the street and at curbside.

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The first postcard image shows the next business block south of the previous view (in Figs. 4.17 and 4.18) on the same side of the street. This is the Longoria Block, built in 1929 by a prominent banking family and crowded with businesses like La Favorita (a clothing store) and Zapateria Candela (a shoe store) that might cater to residents as well as visitors. Palm trees visible in the background on the left mark where Plaza Hidalgo was set back from Guerrero. The Tienda de Ropa building with its neon deer sign (described above) is on the right. Pedestrian traffic appears to be made of locals, so this might be an early morning view. The last image is taken from the roof of the Hotel Plaza (visible in previous view at center right) on the south corner of Plaza Hidalgo, looking north on Guerrero to the gate and beyond to Laredo across the river. Local auto and pedestrian traffic suggests how Avenida Guerrero was Nuevo Laredo’s calle principal, alive with activity. Plaza Hidalgo, some seven blocks from the crossing, was about the outer limit of the tourist stroll during the era, and one can see greater density of local businesses than curio stores at this distance from the gate.

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Avenida Guerrero, looking south along the Longoria Block, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. México Fotográfico 140.

FIG. 4.19

FIG. 4.20

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Avenida Guerrero, looking north, Nuevo Laredo, 1950s. Attributed to Escuela Ignacio Zaragoza 16.

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FIG. 5.1 Plaza Juárez, a neighborhood space in Ciudad Porfirio Díaz (Piedras Negras), on a festive celebration day attracting community residents to a central gathering spot. T. Swidernoch, 1900s.

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5

PLAZAS

perhaps the most iconic landscape of any Mexican town is its plaza. Plazas defined the initial organization of a settlement, with streets and blocks surveyed from the plaza, the most central location of a place. When one enters a Mexican town, the principal roads run to the plaza, where the seat of municipal authority, a town’s presidencia municipal, and, typically, its spiritual center, la parroquia, or main church, are positioned. Small towns might have but a single plaza, yet even modest settlements could have two or more plazas. Nevertheless, plazas are varied by their position within a town and the associated buildings surrounding the open space. This is no less true along the Río Bravo than in the heartland of the republic. Figure 5.1 is an early view of Plaza Juárez, a neighborhood space in a residential district of Ciudad Porfirio Díaz (Piedras Negras). Plaza Juárez is six blocks from the town’s main plaza, Hidalgo, and two blocks west of Calle Zaragoza, the main street of Ciudad Porfirio Díaz (Fig. 1.16). A detailed map of the town dated close to the time of this view shows that thirty-two building footprints marked dwellings around Plaza Juárez, and only one each of a general store, lodge hall, and saloon.¹ The celebration evident in the postcard view is likely a Sunday following church gathering, one of the most popular times to promenade through the town’s public square. The foundation of a kiosco, or bandstand, appears to the right of the central walkway, and residents crowd the space of the square. Benches and walkways as well as planted trees help create a garden ambiance that is the essence of the modern plaza landscape.

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Beyond special events, visiting a plaza can be a daily experience for residents. Resting in the sun is part of that diurnal activity of a plaza, so benches where men and sometimes women with children flock to while away hours of the day are typically plentiful. Plazas are also commercial spaces where vendors set up tables and booths, called puestos (stands) or casitas (little houses) to sell local delicacies. Figure 5.2 shows just such activity on a corner of Plaza Hidalgo, the main public square in Matamoros, ca. 1910s. Fruits, arranged in stacks, and what appear to be glass jars holding liquados (various fruit and rice flavored drinks) are on display, and tables with benches are available for patrons. The plaza is heavily shaded with trees to hold back the tropical sun and is enclosed by wide brick sidewalks to encourage el paseo, the promenade. The entire space is surrounded with electric light standards, so the social hub can be used at night. When mule-drawn and, later, electric streetcars appeared in select Río Bravo border towns, the circulation of the cars typically passed by main plazas. Figure 5.3 captures Plaza Juárez in Nuevo Laredo, ca. 1920s, spied from an upper-story window or rooftop of a building at the intersection of Calle Victoria and Calle Ocampo, looking northwest. Avenida Guerrero, along which the mule cars and streetcars operated, is to the left, where the Shamrock Café buffet banner is visible. Plaza Juárez, originally surrounded by residences, is enclosed by commercial land use, including a hotel in this early twentieth-century image. Out of view to the immediate right and set back from Calle Ocampo is the Templo de Santo Niño, built on the plaza in 1888.² In addition to the kiosco at the center of the space, a monument to the left, facing Calle Victoria, is a statue honoring Santiago Mauro Belden, presidente (mayor) of Nuevo Laredo, who oversaw many public works projects for the city in the late nineteenth century, including the first bridge, waterworks, and the Templo Santo Niño. The statue was erected on Plaza Juárez on September 14, 1910.³ As border towns grew and tourism expanded, automobile transportation came to dominate the streets. Plazas adapted to this change, and the sitio, or taxi stand, became a fixture of main plazas; at some squares only taxis could park along its curbs. Figure 5.4 again spotlights Plaza Juárez in Nuevo Laredo, now a 1940s view. The Juárez Sitio is positioned on Calle Victoria near its intersection with Avenida Guerrero, and four vehicles are queued to receive passengers. Taxi drivers could be hired to guide a tourist around the city or to transport local residents. A modern traffic light positioned on the corner testifies to greater automobile density that by 1940s required some regulation. The Templo de Santo Niño, the Belden monument, and a host of resolaneros (people relaxing in the sun) on benches are seen as well in this plaza view. Whereas many Río Bravo border towns included several plazas, only Nuevo Laredo built multiple squares along its main street, Avenida Guerrero. Figure

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Rooftop perspective of Plaza Hidalgo in 1910s Matamoros showing local vendors, walk paths, lights, and benches common to many Río Bravo border town plazas.

FIG. 5.2

Plaza Juárez, the first plaza along Nuevo Laredo’s Avenida Guerrero, boasts a kiosco (bandstand), commemorative statue, tropical plantings, and commercial enterprises surrounding the space in the 1920s. México Fotográfico 62.

FIG. 5.3

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FIG. 5.4 Street-level 1940s view of Plaza Juárez in Nuevo Laredo showing the nearby church Templo Santo Niño and the taxi stand Juárez Sitio. M. M. López, Foto. No. 147.

Plaza Hidalgo in Nuevo Laredo is identified especially by its 1926 clock tower, therefore known by some locals as the Plaza del Reloj. It was a vibrant social space flanked on its south side by a cíne (theater) and a hotel. As seen in previous figures, the photographer’s point of view in this 1950s postcard is a building rooftop on the corner of the space, allowing the image to capture a greater depth of field. FIG. 5.5

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5.5 pictures part of Plaza Hidalgo, a large public space first created as part of the Guardia Nacional, several blocks south of Plaza Juárez (see Fig. 1.13).⁴ In 1926, near the corner of Calle Dr. Mier and Avenida Guerrero, the public clock tower monument that is known as El Reloj Público, seen in the left foreground of the postcard image, was constructed at a cost of $10,000.⁵ In time, Plaza Hidalgo came to be known by some locals as Plaza del Reloj, Clock Plaza. Plaza Hidalgo was completely remodeled in 1935 and expanded as part of a 1938 federal planning commission project.⁶ Motion picture theaters, called cines in Mexico, were built on Plaza Hidalgo as part of its remodeling, and one—the Alameda, in art deco splendor—is visible still in the early 1950s view across the space fronting Calle González. Also evident to the left of the theater is a house that survived at this location from the early twentieth century. To the right in the image and facing Guerrero is a Pemex gas station; Mexico’s petroleum industry was nationalized in the 1930s. The interior of the plaza is crisscrossed by walkways, and the steps to the bandstand are visible to the left of the clock tower. Refreshment stalls (puestos) are positioned along the circular paths inside the plaza, and the perimeter benches are crowded with men and shoeshine boys plying their trade. The central plaza, or plaza principal, sometimes called plaza mayor (main plaza), was the space most often encountered by visitors to the Río Bravo border towns. But neighborhood plazas were also part of the townscape, and occasionally visitors off the main path stumbled on these tranquil residential oases. In the vignettes that follow, the plaza mayor in Reynosa and a neighborhood plaza in Villa Acuña are examined to illustrate the qualities and conditions of plaza types.

P L A ZA REYNOSA Reynosa’s main hub is Plaza Hidalgo, one of four public squares that appear on an early twentieth-century map of the town shortly after the construction of the suspension bridge linking the Mexican border town to Hidalgo, Texas.⁷ Plaza Hidalgo was created with the founding of the present location of Reynosa in 1802; the pueblo was relocated from its original 1748 site up river, where flooding had become a problem.⁸ Because the historic center of Reynosa is situated on the Loma (hill) of San Antonio, the plaza is on the highest ground in the local area, a mile or two from the crossing. During the Prohibition era, Reynosa was a popular place, and autos could navigate the bridge and motor along a largely unpopulated string strip toward the Loma and up on to the plaza, which was the center of attraction. By the 1950s, tourist services, including curio stores, restaurants, and bars, crowded the edges of the string strip. With the expansion of these services into surrounding streets a district developed that came to be called the zona rosa (pink zone) of the town.

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FIG. 5.6

FIG. 5.7

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Plaza Hidalgo, south side along Calle Morelos, Reynosa, 1920s.

Partial view of Plaza Hidalgo, Reynosa, 1940s. M. M. López Foto., 228.

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The first postcard view, snapped from the bell tower of the old cathedral, La Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, on the east side of the plaza, looks west along Calle Morelos to its intersection with Calle Hidalgo during the 1920s. The single-story limestone buildings on the corner, identified as the McAllen Café and Saloon, were originally residences that had been converted to businesses to capture the flood of thirsty—and ultimately, hungry—visitors from across the river during the prohibition years inaugurated by the Volstead Act. A large bill painted on the wall along Calle Morelos boasts about Sabinas, a Mexican “high-power” beer. Also prominent on Morelos is the two-story, elaborately painted façade of the municipal palace, or city hall, that faces the plaza. Broad walkways, a monument of the bust of Benito Juárez, and concrete benches decorate the public space, but there is no landscaping to speak of during this era. A Mexican Curios shack sits at one corner of the plaza. Some two decades later, postcard photographer M. M. López positioned himself in the exact same place to capture a 1940s view of the plaza using a camera with a wider-angle lens. The McAllen Café and Saloon is now La Estrella store and the Azteca Curio Store. Carrol Norquist, Jr., from Edinburg, Texas, across the river, recalls visiting La Estrella as a young boy in the 1940s. The establishment was a variety store with advertisements in English and appealed to both Reynosa residents and Americans.⁹ A two-story lodging, the Hotel Tivoli, now sits firmly in the open lot seen previously, and it is flanked to its right by two additional curio stores, Gonzalez Curio Shop and De Alba’s Curios. The hotel, considered elegant and known as majestuoso because of its blue and white tile exterior, was owned by Alonzo González and later operated by his son.¹⁰ The municipal palace and Juárez monument persist, and now there are more benches and landscaping, as well as a traditional kiosco (bandstand), to embellish the space.

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Two photographic postcard views look east along Calle Morelos from the roof of the McAllen Café and Saloon during the 1920s. The background of the first image shows the open, unbuilt brush country below the Loma. The photographer’s focus is the fiesta transpiring on Calle Morelos in the foreground. Behind is the cathedral along Calle Juárez. The building to the right of the church is the Texas Club Bar, the name of which is masked in the postcard image, as is the Sabinas beer bill on the building next to the municipal palace on Calle Morelos. One might interpret this as an effort to disguise any emblems of Prohibition businesses in a view that captures youth in a public celebration. Crowds line both sides of Morelos, and a few individuals gather on the palace balcony, which is draped in bunting the colors of the Mexican flag seen waving above, suggesting a Diez y Seis de Septiembre (Sixteenth of September, Mexican Independence Day) ceremony. The paired postcard view dated 1926 reveals almost exactly the same perspective of Plaza Hidalgo along Calle Morelos looking east to the cathedral on Calle Juárez. There is no celebration on this day in July, yet no less than thirty-seven vehicles line Calles Morelos and Juárez. Many of these autos are likely from across the river, attracted to Reynosa’s eating and drinking establishments around the plaza. The presence of women and children suggests this might be a Sunday afternoon. Octogenerian Florinda Vela Costilla, born in Hidalgo, Texas, recalls visiting Plaza Hidalgo as a teenage girl with friends and chaperons to participate in the Sunday paseo, or promenade.¹¹ It was common at the time for Mexicans from the Texas border town to frequent Reynosa’s plaza to shop and also for special services orchestrated by the cathedral, La Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Bridge company records reveal that an average of 1400 people crossed daily between Hidalgo, Texas, and Reynosa in the 1920s.¹² Visible in this image is a ramada to shade strollers from the summer sun; this is the converted Mexican Curios shack from the previous image.

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FIG. 5.8

Plaza Hidalgo fiesta, Reynosa, 1920s. García Fot., 15.

FIG. 5.9

Cathedral and Calle Morelos, Reynosa, July 10, 1926.

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FIG. 5.10

Plaza Hidalgo and the Municipal Palace, Reynosa, 1920s.

FIG. 5.11

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Plaza Hidalgo, looking north, Reynosa, 1920s.

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The presidencial, or municipal palace, of Reynosa was a humble yet striking example of borderland vernacular architecture. This 1920s frontal view from Plaza Hidalgo looking across Calle Morelos pictures the public building and its elaborate painted façade. The practice of accentuating windows and doorways with paint is ancient in North Africa and the Islamic Mediterranean. The tradition was transferred to Mexico by Spanish craftsmen trained in what is called the mudéjar style, an Islamic decorative arts popular in Spain following the Reconquista (the Reconquest), when Moors were finally dislodged politically from the Iberian Peninsula in the late fifteenth century.¹³ The municipal palace was remodeled in 1955–1956 with a modern glass and metal front, erasing forever this classic historic façade, which survives now in postcard memories.¹⁴ Men of all ages stand posed to the side of the Juárez monument, dressed in shirts, ties, and hats, perhaps following a Sunday church service. The second view was very likely taken from the balcony of the municipal palace looking north across one corner of the plaza along Calle Hidalgo to its intersection with Calle Zaragoza. Men, women, and children clog the sidewalks of the plaza. The Mexican Curios shack is again visible in this view, and what appears to be a serape is spied in one window. Another smaller shack selling tarjetas postales, postcards, and dulces, or candies, is to the left. That shop may well have sold this very postcard. Along Calle Hidalgo in the middle of the block is a building flying the Mexican flag and, next door, the San Antonio Bar. At the corner of Hidalgo and Zaragoza are two unidentified buildings, one with an elaborate façade, likely a residence converted to a business. Calle Hidalgo drops sharply beyond this intersection, testifying to the elevation drop from the high ground of the plaza.

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High photo density for a site is one of the unusual qualities of postcard photography. Many views of the same site pictured repeatedly over several generations by different photographers enable researchers to analyze place serially, through time.¹⁵ This set of postcard images allows us to see the Juárez Monument and the kiosco, or bandstand, on Reynosa’s Plaza Hidalgo some two decades apart, a repeat photo exercise that is the first step in assembling a sequence of serial imagery. While physical artifacts persist over the decades, the ephemeral landscape of plants and foliage change the view markedly between the 1920s and 1940s.

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Juárez Monument and kiosco, Reynosa, 1920s. García Fot., 45.

FIG. 5.12

FIG. 5.13

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Juárez Monument and kiosco, Reynosa, 1940s. W. M. Cline.

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FIG. 5.14

FIG. 5.15

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Plaza Hidalgo, Reynosa, 1940s.

Plaza Hidalgo, Reynosa, 1950s. García L. Fot., 608.

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Plaza Hidalgo persisted into the 1940s and 1950s as a social hub in spite of the growing popularity of the zona rosa, the new tourist district, between the bridge and the plaza. Fitting the explosion in the town’s population, a new cathedral—seen in the Fig. 5.15—was built next to the old one—seen in Fig. 5.14. Construction commenced March 1950 and reached completion in December 1956.¹⁶ The modern towers and dome of the new church—also named La Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe—became a landmark visible from the bridge and also from across the river. Building a new cathedral did not mean that the older one disappeared. It remains an important link to the history of the plaza still, and it houses the municipal archives. Eateries have long been a business standard on Plaza Hidalgo. Following the lead of the McAllen Café and Saloon of the 1920s, the Meca Café and Bar of the 1940s, and a popular new restaurant of the 1950s, the Rancho Grande, famous for its cabrito (spit-roasted kid goat), opened at the corner of Calles Morelos and Juárez next door to the church.¹⁷ The Rancho Grande appealed mostly to local residents, occupying the building called the Texas Club Bar during the 1920s. The restaurant also functioned as a bus station for lines servicing Matamoros and Monterrey. Reynosa’s Plaza Hidalgo remained the setting as well for Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday promenades into the 1950s. The persistence of that activity earned Reynosa the claim as the “most traditionally Mexican community” of northern Mexico.¹⁸ Figure 5.14, a 1940s color-tinted postcard image, shows men in hats making their way to the heart of the plaza, perhaps to participate in the paseo. Benches, a small puesto or casita—a booth—as well as the Juárez Monument and bandstand, are visible. In the foreground of Figure 5.15, the 1950s view, sitios, or taxi stands, are prominent at each corner of Plaza Hidalgo, and beyond on the left is a casita. Mature landscaping, including varieties of Mexican palms, decorates the plaza in each view.

Plazas

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PL A ZA VILL A ACUÑA The main plaza at Villa Acuña differs importantly from those of other Río Bravo towns. Plaza Benjamín Canales, named after a hero of the wars for independence, is not situated on the town’s calle principal or main street. In fact, Villa Acuña’s plaza is several blocks south of Calle Hidalgo and west of the gateway (see Fig. 1.19). The plaza is, therefore, a neighborhood space, used almost exclusively by local residents and distant from the tourist attractions along and proximate to Calle Hidalgo. Why this would be so is, in part, a function of Acuña’s late founding and remote location across the river from the western edge of South Texas. Villa Acuña is the smallest of the Río Bravo border towns considered here, and it has persisted as an insular community, sustained by its local economy and a tenuous connection to a tourism that in large measure is oriented to populations in West-Central Texas. In the early twentieth century, Villa Acuña’s plaza was a modest space, focused on a kiosco (bandstand) and laced with dirt walkways bounded by sparse vegetation. A first postcard glimpse, Figure 5.16, suggests a quiet space, so tranquil that no people are present on a spring day. In fact, this is typical of neighborhood plazas in towns across Mexico and in communities in South Texas that have a Mexican heritage.¹⁹ The plaza is seldom crowded except for those passing through the space, or a few elderly residents who take their regular positions on benches to chat with neighbors. Unlike the plazas principales of more populated towns, provincial places with many fewer residents generate less daily activity in their public spaces. Local plazas are transformed, however, for special events (see Fig. 5.1) or Sunday celebrations like the paseo (promenade); otherwise, the space is seemingly in slumber. Institutions like the church and government are often the most visible presence on the periphery of a plaza. Figure 5.17 shows the municipal palace, or presidencia municipal, on the northwest corner of Plaza Benjamín Canales in the 1920s. The two-story structure seems understated compared to its counterpart in Piedras Negras (see Fig. 2.7a ). Yet the building was possibly the most elaborate in Acuña during this time. It appears to have been constructed of stone or adobe, as evidenced by the thickness of the walls at door openings. It is graced with a milled-wood balcony, pitched roof, window dormers, and an apron of concrete sidewalk. The national flag, hoisted on a staff positioned on the roof, flaps gently in the wind, and local officials are posed in front, flanked by period autos.

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FIG. 5.16

Plaza Benjamín Canales, Villa Acuña, 1910s. Nacional Studio.

FIG. 5.17

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Presidencia Municipal, Villa Acuña, 1920s.

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FIG. 5.18

FIG. 5.19

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Church and school, main plaza, Villa Acuña, 1920s. México Fotográfico 34.

Guadalupe church and bust of Manuel Acuña, Ciudad Acuña, 1950s. México Fotográfico 16.

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The main plaza in Villa Acuña is pictured here in the 1920s, looking toward the southeast corner of the square at Calle Matamoros and Calle Victoria. A double belfry, single-story church is flanked by a pitched roof schoolhouse, and in the background are residences that surround the square, testifying to the neighborhood character of the space. Concrete benches line one side of the plaza, and pooled water on Matamoros and an irrigation ditch for nurturing cottonwood saplings extends along the edge of the space. Some three decades later, Plaza Benjamín Canales shows marked improvements in landscaping and statuary. A large cathedral in modern architectural style, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, replaces the simple templo (church) of an earlier era, and busts of local heroes, including the town namesake Manual Acuña, in the foreground, decorate the plaza. Local foot traffic across the space is again visible, as are a young couple snuggling on a concrete bench under the shade of an immature tree. In Mexico, public spaces are popular with novios, young lovers, and are about the only places where they can be alone.

Plazas

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Del Rio photographer Robert L. Warren took advantage of the new Our Lady of Guadalupe cathedral to position himself above Villa Acuña’s plaza and snap this view looking northwest across the space. Mrs. Warren, a photographic colorist who worked in their studio, is posed below in front of a statue facing Calle Matamoros and the cathedral. The plaza was redeveloped as part of the construction of the cathedral in the 1940s and appears here in all its grand formality. Two-toned sidewalks, light standards, and dozens of benches, many inscribed with names of donors, surround the heart of the plaza. Eight separate walkways in classic arrangement divide heavily landscaped wedges of the interior, and all are fixed on a central roofless kiosco ringed by lighted columns that sit above a ground floor service area accessible to pedestrian traffic. The municipal palace (city hall) described above is seen in the distance across the street from the plaza on the northwest corner of Calle Galeana and Guerrero Boulevard. Perhaps a decade later, a photographic stringer (agente viajero) for the national postcard company México Fotográfico positions himself in a similar spot on the church overlooking Villa Acuña’s main plaza to snap this view with a short telephoto lens. The view captures the north end of the plaza, which is now overgrown with mature trees, hence the association of parque, or park, for the space. Two young ladies sit on the steps of the kiosco, and a small group of children are gathered on the lower right around one of the plaza benches. The municipal palace is still visible, and on the right of the structure sits a large street grader, symbolic of the improvements to Acuña, which is now mostly paved in the central area of the town. On the horizon to the left of center is the white reflection of the steel girders of the International Bridge, and beyond is the flat-to-undulating terrain of the plateau country surrounding Del Rio across the river.

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FIG. 5.20

FIG. 5.21

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Plaza Benjamín Canales, Villa Acuña, 1940s. R. L. Warren.

Plaza panorama, Ciudad Acuña, 1950s. México Fotográfico 7.

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FIG. 6.1 1900s view of El Parián, an early city market in Nuevo Laredo that was destroyed by fire in 1914. A. M. Simon, 15746.

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6

ATTRACTIONS

attractions are gathering places that accommodate large numbers of visitors and residents alike. While plazas, discussed in Chapter 5, are a type of open-air social space that accommodates relaxation and celebration, attractions are more specific in their use, typically accommodate larger crowds, and can be private as well as public areas. In the Río Bravo border towns, attractions can be markets, transportation stations, and sporting arenas like bullrings. This chapter introduces examples of these spaces for the river towns and draws upon the mercado (market) of Matamoros and the plaza de toros (bullring) in Villa Acuña as vignettes to elaborate the theme for specific places. Markets, called mercados, were common to every Río Bravo town and were typically situated on the main street. Figure 6.1 shows the old market known as El Parián in Nuevo Laredo, ca. 1909, located on Avenida Guerrero several blocks south from Plaza Juárez. Constructed in the early 1880s, the market was at the ground floor and was surrounded by other smaller buildings—La Estrella and La Luna—that sold fruits, vegetables, and assorted goods. The upper floor of the market building housed the Casino de Nuevo Laredo, a fraternal organization composed of leading merchants and private citizens. This market burned in 1914 when Nuevo Laredo’s commercial district was set aflame by revolutionary forces fleeing the city. Figure 6.2 is the new facility, the Mercado Belisario Domínguez, built in 1919 at the same site of the old Parián and later renamed “Maclovio Herrera” to

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honor a local hero of the Mexican Revolution (see Fig. 1.13).¹ A visitor to this market in 1936 noted: The market was as neat as an advertising agency’s waiting room. . . . Everywhere there was evidence of the fanatical passion for design that inhabits the soul of the Mexican on market day; the tomatoes were built into little pyramids, ten to a pile; the heads of lettuce were stacked in larger mounds; the black pods of peppers lay flat in patterns that looked like steam-turbines in cross section.²

Figure 6.3 shows a new structure, the rebuilt Mercado Maclovio Herrera, which replaced the older market at the same location in 1947. The Herrera became a favorite of visitors to Nuevo Laredo. Figure 6.4 shows the interior space, which enclosed stalls like carnicerías (meat counters) for residents, as well as curios for tourists. Four of the five Río Bravo towns considered here were connected by railroads between the 1900s and 1950s, affording regional rail travel between towns. Two of these, Nuevo Laredo and Piedras Negras, also had railroad crossings to the American side of the river. Travel by train to the interior of Mexico was most popular via the Laredo–Nuevo Laredo crossing. Train stations, therefore, were attractions where locals and visitors intermingled. Figure 6.5 is a photographic postcard view of the station at Piedras Negras during the 1920s. Autos await disembarking passengers, and horse-drawn carts off-load bulk materials from a train in front of the depot situated at the south end of town (see Fig. 1.16). A 1900 travel guide to Mexico declared that crossing the Rio Grande on the Mexican International Railroad from Eagle Pass, Texas, to Ciudad Porfirio Díaz (Piedras Negras) was entering into a foreign land—the “Land of the Aztecs”—without crossing the seas.³ The railroad ran south to Torreon, where it connected to the Mexican Central Railroad with the final destination, Mexico City. While auto

FIG. 6.2 Nuevo Laredo’s Mercado Belisario Domínguez, built in 1919, is seen here in the 1940s, renamed Maclovio Herrera to honor a local hero. México Fotográfico 86.

Mercado Maclovio Herrera, rebuilt at the same site near the gate crossing in 1947, became a favorite of visitors to Nuevo Laredo. México Fotográfico 137.

FIG. 6.3

FIG. 6.4 Interior view of the two-story Mercado Maclovio Herrera on Nuevo Laredo’s main street during the 1950s. García L. Fot. 518.

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FIG. 6.5 Piedras Negras was one of the earliest Río Bravo border towns to be connected by railroad to the United States. This 1920s view shows the railroad station as a popular gathering spot, an attraction to postcard photographers as well as passengers. México Fotográfico 22.

FIG. 6.6 The modern railroad station at Nuevo Laredo, ca. 1950s, was the most popular rail crossing connecting the United States and Mexico. It enabled American visitors to travel from the border to the capital of the Mexican Republic. García L. Fot. 545.

FIG. 6.7 This plaza de toros (bullring) on the western outskirts of Matamoros, ca. 1910s, is typical of first-generation arenas constructed entirely of wood.

A full house gathers at one of Nuevo Laredo’s bullrings in the 1940s, a popular attraction for locals and visitors during the fight season.

FIG. 6.8

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travel in Mexico began to overshadow railroad travel in the late 1920s, trains remained an important form of passenger transit into the 1950s, especially at Nuevo Laredo, which became the principal gateway to Mexico from the United States during the era.⁴ Figure 6.6 illustrates the modern station, built next to the original station (now the municipal archives), in Nuevo Laredo. The new depot showcases the Mexican border town’s embrace of the international style, an open canopy rectangular box with abundant glass and an adjacent elevated office block. Bullrings, called plazas de toros in Mexico, were popular gathering spots in Río Bravo towns during the fight season. Early bullrings were usually located on the edges of towns. Figure 6.7 is a 1910s image of the plaza de toros on the southwestern outskirts of Matamoros (see Fig. 1.7). Typical of plazas de toros during the early part of the twentieth century, this oval arena with bleacher seating was constructed of wood. Old-style wooden bullrings persisted in many border towns until the 1950s, when they were replaced with modern concrete-andsteel structures. Seating protocols for both old- and new-style rings conventionally distinguished between sombra (shade) and sol (sun), which is evident in the sign above the closed door in the postcard view. Bills once posted to the exterior wooden wall—visible by shadowed outlines and tattered paper—announced the matador and how many bulls would be fought on a given day. Inside the ring, a capacity crowd composed of locals and visitors might gather for an especially popular matador, as seen in a 1940s view of the plaza de toros in Nuevo Laredo in Figure 6.8. Advertising, then as now, was a mainstay at these social gatherings, and a part of the interior cornice of this ring featured promotions from the national lottery, a local newspaper, and two brands of hatmakers. Most men in the crowd are wearing hats.

T HE MERCADO AT MATAMOROS The mercado, or city market, of Matamoros was situated four blocks northwest of Plaza Hidalgo between Calles Abasolo and Matamoros and Avenidas 9 and 10 (see Fig. 1.7). It was positioned along the mule-car and later streetcar line that connected the downtown to the river crossing at Santa Cruz. The market is shown on maps at this location as early as 1854, and for many years it was known simply as El Parián and later as Mercado Juárez.⁵

Attractions

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Figures 6.9 and 6.10 show the same street corner entrance to the mercado of Matamoros about one decade apart. At the left of the entrance is the bar Salon Sabinas, and to the right is an unnamed cantina that in the later view is the Hotel Reforma. At the center foreground of each image are puestos, or vendor stalls, with men gathered around posing for the photographers. In the photographic postcard view, Figure 6.10, one refreshment stand is named El Pico de Oro (Golden Beak). Behind is the open square of the market, the roof of the market building that is at the center of the plaza-like space, and the famous clock tower, landmark of the mercado, which would chime on the hour and could be heard across the quarter.⁶

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FIG. 6.9

Plaza de mercado, Matamoros, 1930s. C. T. American Art Colored.

FIG. 6.10

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Mercado Juárez, Matamoros, 1940s.

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FIG. 6.11

FIG. 6.12

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The mercado, Matamoros, 1907.

The meat market, Matamoros, 1900s.

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Figures 6.11 and 6.12 illustrate how the market in Matamoros chiefly served local residents in the early decades of the twentieth century. The mercado was the principal distribution center for produce and meat, and residents would visit the node to purchase those commodities daily. Peripheral stalls (as in Fig. 6.11) were simple spaces surrounding the market building, sometimes fronted by barrels and covered by canvas awnings. Produce was then as now piled into pyramid-like mounds for easy display. Proprietors engaged in daily conversations among themselves and as necessary with buyers. By contrast, El Parián contained an enclosed market building (see Fig. 6.12) that accommodated more specialized vending like the carnicería, or meat market, where butchers quartered, hung, and custom cut pieces of meat. The only things missing from this image are the inevitable and numerous flies that must have been drawn to the meat.

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Figures 6.13 and 6.14 reveal separate aisles of the interior of Mercado Juárez during the 1920s and 1950s. The first view captures the peripheral stalls around the market building with arched entrances seen in Figure 6.12. The stalls feature a variety of goods, but perhaps most visible are the clay pots and assorted pottery in the booth to the left of center. An observation of the market made by a visitor two decades previous to this image was that “a stranger can interest himself for hours with the native toys and quaint-looking jugs and pitchers, all made of clay-like pottery. . . . All of these wares are brought from the interior [of Mexico], where they are manufactured.”⁷ In the later postcard view, the peripheral stalls are now vending goods clearly oriented to tourists. The display case at left is filled with silver jewelry, most likely transported to the border from Taxco, Mexico’s center of silver costume jewelry during this period.⁸ On the glass case counter are a pair of carved Mexican figurine bookends, bottles of perfumes, and two spindle racks with postcards.

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FIG. 6.13

FIG. 6.14

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Mercado Juárez, Matamoros, 1920s.

Interior of the mercado, Matamoros, 1950s. México Fotográfico 69.

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FIG. 6.15

Bullfight at Sabinas Arena, Villa Acuña, 1928. Attributed to Herman Lippe.

FIG. 6.16

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Villa Acuña and La Macarena map postcard, Villa Acuña, 1950s.

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L A MACAR ENA CAFÉ, BAR , AND B ULLR I NG In the border town of Ciudad Acuña—called Villa Acuña from 1912 to 1957— across the river from Del Rio, Texas, stands a café, bar, and onetime bullring called La Macarena. La Macarena was so popular with Texas visitors to Mexico during the 1940s–1950s that an afternoon spent at the bullfights followed by an evening at the café-bar became known as “a West Texas custom.”⁹ While many Mexican border towns staged bullfights, La Macarena became a premier showplace of the art-sport on the border during the 1950s. Part of this was no doubt related to the promotional efforts of its owner-operator Jesús M. Rámos. But Villa Acuña was also an attractive venue because the small town of about 11,000 was easy to access and less chaotic to navigate than larger cities like Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, and Reynosa during that period (see Table 1.1). La Macarena Café, Bar, and Bullring was a celebrated gathering spot for residents and visitors and became one of the most attractive spaces along the Río Bravo. La Macarena was not the first plaza de toros in Villa Acuña. An earlier arena called Sabinas hosted bullfights before there was a Macarena. The Sabinas plaza de toros was typical of early wood-constructed rings, and like most others in the Río Bravo border towns was situated on the outskirts of town. The arena’s name follows that of a town in the carbonifera (coal producing) region of Coahuila south of Acuña, but it is also the name of a popular beer brewed in the region and sold throughout the Río Bravo towns. In Figure 6.15, an advertising board in the arena proclaims “Drink Sabinas Especial,” while another smaller sign to the right warns, “Throwing Bottles into the Ring Strictly Forbidden by the Law.” Farther right is an even smaller sign in Spanish that reads “Se Prohibe Tirar Objectos en el Redondel” (It is prohibited to throw objects into the ring). From Del Rio, Texas, visitors to La Macarena crossed the Rio Grande–Río Bravo on the Citizens Bridge, the longest bridge, when first built in 1922, connecting an American town to a Mexican border town (see Fig. 3.6). It is also known as the International Bridge, and tourists could drive six blocks south on Acuña’s main street—Calle Hidalgo—then turn east one block, and there it was, La Macarena Café, Bar, Patio, and Bullring, the “Most Beautiful Place” in “The Best Town on the Border,” offering service from 8 a.m. to midnight.

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La Macarena Café and Bar was started in 1943 by Mexican politico and businessman Jesús M. Rámos, then known far and wide by governors and presidents in Texas and Mexico. Rámos was a member of the International Good Neighbor Commission, and his café in Villa Acuña was considered one of the finest dining establishments in the region on either side of the border. Guests could indulge in wild-game dishes and first-class food prepared by celebrated Mexican chefs. La Macarena pitched itself as the “Mecca of the Fine Gourmet.” Advertisements in the local Del Rio News-Herald and other West Texas papers regularly featured a host of attractions and entertainment served up at La Macarena “In the Pleasant Surroundings of Romantic Old Mexico.”¹⁰ While dining and dancing were popular draws, the number-one attraction was the bullfight staged in the large arena behind La Macarena Café and Bar (see Fig. 1.19) on the first Sunday of every month during the season. Bullfighting, an art associated with Mediterranean cultures going back to ancient Crete, was one of several popular sports that attracted American visitors to Mexican border towns from the early to late twentieth century. The arena in Villa Acuña opened in 1944. Doing battle with bulls in an arena became especially popular to American movie audiences during the 1950s. Two Hollywood productions appeared in 1951, and these films, perhaps more than any other, accelerated the popularity of bullfighting in America. The Brave Bulls, based on Tom Lea’s best-selling book and starring Mel Ferrer and Anthony Quinn, recounts the story of Luis Bello, played by Ferrer, who rose from dire poverty to become one of Mexico’s most revered matadors. Nominated for an Oscar for best film, Bullfighter and the Lady, directed by Budd Boetticher in 1951, and starring Robert Stack, Joy Page, Gilbert Roland, and Katy Jurado, was another popular bullfight movie. Stack plays Johnny Regan, an American who goes to Mexico and falls for a local beauty Anita de la Vega portrayed by Page. To impress the Mexican señorita, he learns to bullfight. Some eight professional toreros (matadors) appear as themselves in the movie, which was filmed in Mexico City and several other Mexican locations. The combination of love story, romantic locales, dangerous sport, and heroic action were the perfect combination plate for American consumers of the era.

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FIG. 6.17

La Macarena Café Bar, Villa Acuña, 1940s. México Fotográfico 79.

FIG. 6.18

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La Macarena Arena, Villa Acuña, 1940s. R. L. Warren.

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FIG. 6.19

La Macarena Patio, Villa Acuña, 1940s. R. L. Warren.

St. Nicholas Fiesta at Macarena Arena, Villa Acuña, 1940s.

FIG. 6.20

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In 1946, La Macarena opened an alfresco patio and roof garden that could accommodate 200 guests. Nightly floor shows featuring top-flight entertainers from Mexico City drew patrons to the establishment, where no cover charge existed and where “Our Prices Are No Higher than the Lowest.” The venue became heralded as “the Showplace on the Border,” and Del Rio and Villa Acuña were called “Your Nearest and Nicest Border Towns” for West Texas visitors.¹¹ In addition to bullfights and nightly entertainment, La Macarena was the stage for numerous border celebrations. The annual St. Nicholas Fiesta drew crowds to the Macarena for special activities. Rodeos, boxing matches, dance contests, and skating competitions were featured at the arena or in the café and bar.¹² Traditionally, fighting bulls was a male-dominated sport, where matadors or toreros (bullfighters) through their exploits in the arena gained notoriety and fame. Along the Mexican border, however, several female bullfighters—called matadoras or toreras—rose to prominence, and La Macarena became one of the showplaces for these brave and skilled women.

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The first to break into this world dominated by men was Chilean-born Concepción “Conchita” Cintrón (1922–2009), the daughter of a Connecticut-born mother Loyola Verrilla and a Puerto Rican father Frank Cintrón. At the age of 13, Conchita learned to fight bulls Portuguese-style, on horseback, hence she was called a rejoneadora, or mounted bullfighter. She debuted in Lima, Peru, in 1937 and was said to have fought some 750 bulls in arenas in Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Portugal, France, and Mexico, including an appearance at La Macarena in Villa Acuña. In 1940, Cintrón was quoted in an interview saying, “No, it doesn’t take great strength to kill a bull. It does take a keen eye, a steady nerve and a true hand.”¹³ Several Texas rejoneadoras became local celebrities, including Edith Evans and Georgina Knowles, but the best-remembered Texas torera was Patricia McCormick, known as “The Lady Bullfighter.” McCormick was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but grew up in Big Spring, Texas, where she developed a fascination with bullfighting at an early age. Trained in the Castillian style, she made her professional debut at Ciudad Juárez in January 1952, becoming the first American female professional matadora. In ten years, she faced approximately 600 bulls. On one afternoon in a so-called mano a mano (hand to hand) bullfight, she competed with another matador, each killing three bulls.¹⁴ McCormick was a favorite at La Macarena, drawing large crowds from nearby Laughlin Air Force Base outside Del Rio and from adoring bullfight fans from across West Texas. In September 1954, she was seriously gored in the arena in Villa Acuña and given last rites in a local church, yet she survived. Two years later, honoring her vow to return to La Macarena, she came back as some 7000 tourists crowded across the International Bridge to watch.¹⁵ McCormick published an autobiography, Lady Bullfighter (1954), and retired from the ring in 1962. In 2007, the Heritage Museum in Big Spring opened a permanent exhibit honoring her career as the most famous matadora in Texas. American model and actress Bette Ford is another celebrated matadora who appeared at La Macarena.¹⁶ Born Harriet Elizabeth Dingeldein in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, Bette Ford gained fame as a New York model whose face became synonymous with the Jantzen Bathing Suit Girl, the Camay Bride, the Parliament Girl, and many other commercial advertisements. She made regular appearances on television variety programs including the Jackie Gleason and Jimmy Durante Shows. On a modeling assignment in Colombia, she witnessed her first bullfight and became captivated with the drama and art of the spectacle. She later trained in Mexico, debuted in Ciudad Juárez in 1954, and quickly became a top-ten matadora, becoming the first woman bullfighter to appear in the prestigious Plaza de México in Mexico City. Fighting chiefly in Mexico, she killed over 200 bulls in her career, suffered a broken back, a dislocated shoulder, and a goring of her hand. Known as “Guts Ford,” she said, “T’aint life that matters but the courage . . . ,” a quote that her web page displays under her name.¹⁷

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FIG. 6.21

FIG. 6.22

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“Conchita Cintrón, Famous Woman Bullfighter,” Villa Acuña, 1940s. R. L. Warren.

Patricia McCormick gored in bullfight, Villa Acuña, September 5, 1954. México Fotográfico 31.

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7

BUSINESSES AND LANDMARKS

many kinds of locations were visited by tourists and therefore by postcard photographers. Unlike attractions, businesses and landmarks were more frequent in the border townscape and were typically smaller gathering places. For the border town tourist, however, these places were part of the bread and butter of visitor experience. For example, bars—a popular type of gathering place— gained notoriety during the American Prohibition era (1919–1933) when legal alcohol production and consumption were suppressed in the United States but promoted in Mexico. Exterior and especially interior views of these spaces were a favorite of postcard photographers. The near universal popularity of drinking establishments has been constant in Mexican border towns ever since, although visual representation of the type has ebbed from its once-halcyon days. Eateries, especially formal restaurants, are always popular spots in a tourist locale, and border towns were no different. Those that claimed the greatest attraction often served up exotic wild game or foreign dishes presented in an atmosphere of live musical entertainment. Curio stores, also popular, became a mainstay of border towns with their kitschy commodities and Mexican folk materials providing an essential allure of treasures to be purchased and ferried home to validate the border town visit. These and others spaces inform the visual feast that was the border town landscape for visitors to engage and photographers to chronicle. In this chapter, select examples of these locations are presented in gallery format, with each image or set of related images and its caption describing the importance of picture and place.

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In his novel Border City, Texan author Hart Stillwell captured the essence of the American Bar in Matamoros—an establishment created during the Prohibition era and seen here in its exterior splendor with abundant signage. Stillwell hailed the bar as a haven for American tourists into the 1940s. The American Bar is one of half dozen bars scattered around the main plaza . . . sandwiched in among such buildings and enterprises as the cathedral, a drugstore . . . , the city hall and jail, curio stores . . . , and the customs house. Aside from the official business conducted in the customs house and the city hall, and the business of worship conducted in the cathedral, the main plaza of the town had long been dedicated to the American visitor in pursuit of pleasure. . . . Now and then an American would stop and watch the youngsters as they paraded around the square [the seranata, or paseo]. And some of the Americans sat in the park and listened to the music. But most made for the bars.¹

Arguably, the most famous bar on the Mexican border, the Cadillac Bar in Nuevo Laredo, was founded by Mayo Bessan (Achilles Mehault Bessan), a New Orleans native, in 1926, and was originally known as El Caballo Blanco Bar.² The name was changed on July 4, 1929, reputedly because Bessan wanted a rich-sounding name. The Cadillac was strategically located only a block from the border crossing and a block below Avenida Guerrero. It became an international success, attracting celebrities and tourists to its diverse food and drink. Although Mexican food was available, the Cadillac prided itself on exotic fare like green turtle soup and frog legs, along with steaks, lobster, and Italian dishes. The premier attraction, however, was its famous egg white with cream and lemon juice cocktail, the Ramos Gin Fizz—invented in New Orleans in 1888—and six other fizz and flip concoctions. The gin fizz was said by Bessan to be a masterpiece of modern achievement. Use of the full name—the Ramos Gin Fizz—was legally contested, however, in 1949 for copyright infringement, so it was later renamed simply “the Ramos.” Porter Gardiner, Jr., who took over operation of the bar from Bessan in 1947 noted that the Cadillac never served desserts. “When a customer eats dessert,” said Gardiner, “he tends to quit drinking.”³ It seems that every Río Bravo border town had a Shamrock Bar, a testament perhaps to the Mexican perception of the Irish American association with good luck or, more likely, to the practice of Irish American ownership of border town bars that began during Prohibition.⁴ Nuevo Laredo’s Shamrock was located on Plaza Juárez (see Fig. 5.3) and, like the Cadillac Bar, it was close to the crossing. Bars that catered to tourists almost universally also served meals, and this image captures the largely American clientele celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in 1938. The serving staff, dressed in white coats and bow ties, are probably Mexican.

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FIG. 7.3

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FIG. 7.1

The American Bar, Matamoros, 1920s.

FIG. 7.2

The Cadillac Bar, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s.

Shamrock Bar, Nuevo Laredo, 1938. Sandoval Fot.

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FIG. 7.4

Bohemian Club Drive-In, Nuevo Laredo, 1920s. Jacobs Studio, no. 6.

FIG. 7.5

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The Bohemian Club, Nuevo Laredo, 1930s.

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“Drive-in” had a different connotation during the early twentieth century than it would have toward the middle of that century. Both Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo had establishments so named. In Matamoros, the business was earlier known as the “Summer Garden Drive Inn,” and patrons parked outside and entered an enclosed courtyard where service was provided both in the day and in the evenings under the shade of trees and lights.⁵ In Nuevo Laredo, the Bohemian Club, founded in 1919, was said to be “the most attractive of . . . a half-dozen beer gardens and dancing spots.”⁶ The Bohemian Club, boasting that it was “The Best Place to Eat and Drink” in Nuevo Laredo, also featured an orchestra and encouraged dancing.⁷ The club’s motto, “Where Idle Hours Are Delightfully Spent,” was the perfect elixir for the era.

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Villa Acuña hosted a handful of popular bars and cafes, including the Toltec, La Macarena, and others. None was more popular than Mrs. Crosby’s, only blocks from the crossing on Calle Hidalgo, Acuña’s main street. Esther Otamendi Crosby (1891–1958; see the inset image in Fig. 7.8) of Salvatierra, Mexico, opened a small restaurant in Del Rio, Texas, in 1915, eventually moving her establishment to Villa Acuña in the 1920s.⁸ Known far and wide as “Ma Crosby,” she personally greeted customers who dined at her café.⁹ The eatery became one of the most popular establishments on the Río Bravo border, attracting diners from Texas, Mexico, and the rest of the world.¹⁰ Mrs. Crosby’s claimed impeccable cleanliness, air conditioning, and quality beverages and service: “Our bartenders are trained (not porters) in the art of mixing drinks. We do not water or color liquors. We guarantee our liquors as delivered to us from the distillery.”¹¹ Celebrities were drawn to the first-class service and fine cuisine, advertised to be the “Best Food in Villa Acuña,” and Mrs. Crosby’s employed an orchestra that played from 6 p.m. until midnight to promote dancing.¹² An outdoor patio, hotel, and curio store were added, making Mrs. Crosby’s a full-service stop for visitors and, for special occasions, desired by locals.

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FIG. 7.6

Mrs. Crosby’s Café, Villa Acuña, 1920s. Attributed to Herman Lippe.

FIG. 7.7

FIG. 7.8

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Mrs. Crosby’s Orchestra, Villa Acuña, 1920s. Herman Lippe.

Mrs. Crosby’s Hotel and Café, Villa Acuña, 1940s. R. L. Warren.

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FIG. 7.9

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Washington Bar, Villa Acuña, 1940s. México Fotográfico 39.

FIG. 7.10

Moctezuma Café, Matamoros, 1920s. Attributed to Abrego Fot.

FIG. 7.11

Jardín Bella Vista, Piedras Negras, 1930s. México Fotográfico 85.

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Beyond drinking establishments that appealed to tourists, Río Bravo border towns contained local drink houses sometimes called cantinas, the Mexican Spanish term for such businesses. Unlike the saloon or bar—a term that likely became nearly universal in Mexican border towns with American Prohibition—a cantina might prohibit unescorted women and minors from entering. On the border, so-called ladies’ bars became popular, allowing unchaperoned women into cantinas that historically were reserved for men. Villa Acuña’s Washington Bar appears to have catered to both locals and tourists and may not have discriminated against unescorted women. At the Moctezuma Café in Matamoros, locals, including children, as well as tourists could belly up to or sit on the bar, as the case may be. As described above, dining and drinking were inextricably bound, so a café would oftentimes include a separate bar. In Piedras Negras, the Jardín Bella Vista, located off the town’s main street in a neighborhood, appealed chiefly to locals but could certainly accommodate the visitor. Alfresco or patio drinking seems to have been popular in almost every Río Bravo border town.

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During the 1940s and into the 1950s, Reynosa’s Calzada del Puente, the string strip connecting the bridge crossing to the plaza and the center of the town, became the hot spot for dining, drinking, and entertainment along the Río Bravo border. One of the oldest clubs on the drag was Joe’s Place. Although Joe Ortega assumed ownership of the facility in 1940, the site had been the Joie Palace during Prohibition and the Aztec Club in 1932.¹³ Joe’s appealed primarily to the “family trade,” although floorshows were not unknown. The lavish dine-and-dance club offered a large indoor dining room with dance floor and a spacious outdoor patio for dining and dancing when weather permitted.¹⁴ Joe’s Place shared the Calzada with other leading establishments, including El  Patio (“Reynosa’s Largest and Finest Night Club—Hardwood Dance Floor—Orchestra Every Night”), Sam’s Place (“Where All the Tourists Go—Listed in Duncan Hines’ Adventures in Good Eating”), the Monte Carlo Casino (“The Border’s Largest and Most Famous Night Club—Entertainment by Internationally-Known Stars—Delicious Wild Game Dinners— Only the Best Liquors and Beers Served from a Special 100 Foot Bar—Two Floor Shows Nightly, No Cover Charge on Week Nights, Only 50c per Person on Saturday and Sunday Nights—Enlarged Parking Lot”), and La Cucaracha (Entertainment at Its Best—Game Dinners—Floor Shows—Artistic, Clean.”)¹⁵ Reynosa boasted that its clubs had more seating capacity—one could accommodate 3000—than any Mexican border city from the Gulf of Mexico to California.¹⁶ All clubs were easily accessible and only blocks from the crossing.

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FIG. 7.12

FIG. 7.13

Joe’s Place, Reynosa, 1950s. México Fotográfico 88.

Advertising card, Joe’s Place, Reynosa, 1940s.

FIG. 7.15

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FIG. 7.14

Sam’s Place, Reynosa, 1940s. W. M. Cline.

La Cucaracha, Reynosa, 1940s.

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FIG. 7.16

FIG. 7.17

Mexican Curiosities, Piedras Negras, 1920s.

Mexican Curios Shop, Reynosa, 1940s. México Fotográfico 61.

FIG. 7.18

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Pete’s Curio Store, Reynosa, 1930s.

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Curios, or curiosities, have been staple commodities of border commerce from the late nineteenth century on. The appeal of curio crafts to tourists is an ancient notion with some of the oldest pilgrimage sites in the world crowded by stall after stall of trinket vendors. The variety of items can be staggering, as the interior of Pete’s Curio Shop on the plaza in Reynosa during the 1930s suggests. Every imaginable product was for sale, including serapes and sombreros, leather, carvings, clay pots, baskets, jewelry, ceramics, and more. Early curio stores might be simple stalls, like the 1920s Mexican curiosities stand in Piedras Negras in front of the market on Calle Zaragoza. At Reynosa, most early curio stores were carved out of buildings surrounding Plaza Hidalgo, many of which had functioned as homes or other businesses. At its peak, ca. 1940, no less than seven shops ringed the perimeter of the plaza, including the Mexican Curios Shop, the Aztec Curio Store, De Alba’s Mexican Curios, the Taxco Curio Shop, Colonial Curios Shop, Plaza Curios, and Gonzalez Curio Shop. By the 1950s, most curio stores on the plaza had shut down, and new curio stores opened along the Calzada del Puente squeezed between the clubs and eateries that competed for frontage on the string street. Many curio stores in Río Bravo border towns created ink stamps to mark their postcards, thereby advertising themselves to those who might receive the mailed card and to remind those who stored the cards in albums of the shop they visited.

FIG. 7.19

Curio stamps.

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Whereas most curio craft production became specialized to particular areas of Mexico, some Río Bravo towns manufactured items on site. Curio crafts are called artesanías in Mexico, and production has historically clustered in the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán, Puebla, México, and Chiapas; finished products are shipped north to the border as well as to tourist locations across the country.¹⁷ As border town economies began to dissipate following Prohibition, local production of artesanías was prioritized.¹⁸ In Reynosa, De Alba’s Mexican Curios started producing baskets using local materials and labor, and in Nuevo Laredo, Power’s Curios installed a weaver in its Avenida Guerrero shop to entice tourists to some of its handcrafted items.

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FIG. 7.20

FIG. 7.21

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Indian basket makers, De Alba’s Mexican Curios, Reynosa, 1940s.

Power’s Curios, Perfumes, and Antiques, Nuevo Laredo, 1930s. Sandoval Fot.

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FIG. 7.22

FIG. 7.23

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Calendario Azteca, Ciudad Acuña, 1950s. México Fotográfico 69.

Manhattan Curio Shop, Matamoros, 1940s. Courtesy of the Terry Christiansen Collection.

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Curio stores began to sell liquor as well as curio crafts by the 1950s. Calendario Azteca, one of the largest shops along Ciudad Acuña’s Calle Hidalgo, was featured in many postcards, especially interior views that revealed the variety and quantity of items for sale. The wall of distilled spirits in one image makes clear what many visitors found most alluring. Almost two decades after the repeal of the Volstead Act, tourist shoppers to Río Bravo border towns were still on the hunt for liquor, which sold for considerably less than the same spirits in the United States, where they were heavily taxed. Tequila, less popular then than today, was almost exclusively sold in Mexico. Postcards, however, had become enormously popular in Mexico through the promotion and production of La Compañía México Fotográfico, and tabletop racks displaying photographic cards were de rigueur in every curio shop. The Manhattan Curio Shop in Matamoros sold postcards and stamps so tourists might purchase, address, and mail them in one fell swoop. Note the wall scroll sign to the right of the entrance in Figure 7.23: “Mail Your Postcards from Old Mexico.”

Businesses and Landmarks

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During the 1940s–1950s, when automobile travel between Mexico and the United States was in full swing, larger border towns like Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, and Reynosa were strategic gateways with popular highway connections to the interior of Mexico. Size and access to the larger towns typically allowed visits by more affluent travelers and tourist visitors, and shopping tastes oftentimes extended beyond the ordinary curio store. As a consequence, these towns each had at least one upscale curio store that pandered to affluent desires. In Matamoros there was Casa Yturria, a prominent establishment from the late nineteenth century, and Nuevo Laredo featured the upscale Marti’s, where merchandise catered to an upper crust. In Reynosa, one such store was Lalo’s Gift Shop, located proximate to the crossing on the Calzada del Puente. As the nighttime postcard view reveals, proprietor Lalo Ramirez used exterior lighting and windows to advantage to display wares and services. Money could be exchanged at the store, a public telephone was available, and the merchandise included French and American perfumes, Taxco silver, and hand-blown glass from Guadalajara.

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FIG. 7.24

Casa Lalo’s Curios, Reynosa, 1950s.

Lalo’s Gift Shop advertisement, 1956. Taken from Woods, The Yearbook of the Lower Rio Grande Valley and Northern Mexico, 1956.

FIG. 7.25

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FIG. 7.26

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The Casamata, Matamoros, 1920s. Attributed to Abrego Fot.

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Like a medieval fortress, Matamoros was a city surrounded by walls during part of the nineteenth century. The first fortifications were constructed in the 1820s and 1830s.¹⁹ When Texas seceded from Mexico in 1836, sections of wall were erected out of fear that “Texanos” would invade and capture the city. In the 1840s–1860s, Comanches and Apaches raided and Americans and the French invaded, so defensive measures were a continual pressing concern.²⁰ The Casamata, which was first known as the “Casa Armata,” was located several blocks east of the main plaza (see Fig. 1.7), and it is the last remnant of the fortifications that once enclosed Matamoros.²¹ Identified on early nineteenth-century maps of the city as part of the Plaza de Los Cuarteles and in 1874 as a piece of the Plaza de La Independencia, the Casamata emerged as a popular tourist attraction by the twentieth century, appearing on a dozen different postcards of Matamoros.²² A side destination off the tourist path, yet accessible, the Casamata is one of the points visitors might have viewed in Matamoros. Today, the Casamata and adjoining buildings are designated a state of Tamaulipas historic monument. It houses a museum, historic exhibits, and a municipal archive.²³

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Public buildings were tourist attractions in several of the Río Bravo border towns. At Matamoros, the customs house, or aduana, was a prominent structure facing Plaza Hidalgo and was thus inescapable from visitors to that social hub of the city. Positioned next door to the cathedral, the customs house symbolized the weight of commerce and acted like a balance to faith. It was featured in nearly a dozen postcard images directly and some twenty times as part of the many postcard views of the plaza and surrounding streets.²⁴ The two-story nineteenth-century French revival style building with shuttered windows, wrought iron balconies, and Palladian arched doorways was typical of early Matamoros, a city shaped in part by maritime trade with New Orleans and Galveston. As an international port, Matamoros created the customs house to blunt clandestine trade by insuring proper taxation and regulation of imported goods.²⁵ During the 1930s–1940s cotton boom around Matamoros, carts and trucks loaded with bales would line Calle Morelos in front of the aduana during the harvest season so the cotton could be inspected and stamped before being exported across the Gateway Bridge to Brownsville.²⁶ From 1888 to 1911, Piedras Negras, then known as Ciudad Porfirio Díaz, underwent a remarkable public building boom commensurate with its lofty presidential name and aspirations of modernity.²⁷ In addition to having a municipal palace, post and telegraph office, and market building, the border town featured a customs house that was one of the most grandiose along the Río Bravo border. The French Second Empire structure was only blocks from the railroad depot, the primary source of the tariff revenue that was the raison d’être of the aduana. Completed in 1891, the customs house was designed and built by the San Antonio, Texas, firm of Wahrenberger & Beckmann, German architects who designed and erected some of the most prominent public and private structures in that city. Beckmann spent eighteen months in Ciudad Porfirio Díaz overseeing the construction.²⁸

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FIG. 7.27

FIG. 7.28

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Customs House, Matamoros, 1900s.

Customs House, Piedras Negras, 1930s. México Fotográfico 30.

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FIG. 7.29

Station XER, Villa Acuña, 1930s. Lippe Studio.

FIG. 7.30 Station XEPN, Piedras Negras, 1930s.

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In the early decades of the twentieth century, radio was the popular entertainment venue of the world. Until the United States passed the Radio Act of 1927, there was no regulation of programming over the airwaves in America. The creation of the Federal Radio Commission and consolidation of licensed companies narrowed the field of viable broadcasting stations in the United States. The Mexican border became a fertile ground for a handful of unlicensed operators that built superstations immediately across the Rio Grande on the outskirts of border towns and made special arrangements with broadcast authorities in Mexico City to license them. Superstations were issued call letters beginning with “XE,” creating a brand that elevated superstation notoriety stateside. To outcompete licensed U.S. radio stations, the border blasters—as they came to be called—built single-station networks with extraordinary signal power so their voices, advertising, and variety programming could be heard all across the United States and in many parts of the world.²⁹ Custom-built transmitters enabled these stations to broadcast at 75,000–1,000,000 watts; typical U.S. stations were squeaking by at only a few thousand watts. The XE border stations were said to be “familiar to listeners in Ulysses, Kansas, as well as Uppsala, Sweden.”³⁰ In 1931, outside Villa Acuña, Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, a North Carolina native then operating a small medical clinic in Milford, Kansas, broke ground on his now-infamous XER station. Three-hundred-foot towers soon flanked a newly constructed building that housed a 75,000-watt transmitter, 25,000 watts greater than what was then legally permitted in the United States. From a studio at the Roswell Hotel in downtown Del Rio, Texas, across the river, a special telephone hookup to the XER station allowed Brinkley to broadcast his most famous pitch, “A man is only as old as his glands.”³¹ That message drew thousands to his offices in Del Rio, where Brinkley transplanted goat glands in men who sought revitalization of their lost youth. In 1935, XER became XERA, booming at 1,000,000 watts and the most powerful broadcasting station in the world. Following the success of Acuña’s XER, nearby Piedras Negras became the site of another border blaster, XEPN, where the call letters doubled for Eagle Pass–Piedras Negras. The transmitter was located nine miles northwest of Piedras Negras across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas. The first broadcast studios were set up at the Yolanda Hotel in Eagle Pass and the Casino Club in Piedras Negras and later moved to the Eagle Hotel on the American side and the International Hotel on the Mexican shore. Programming for XEPN followed the variety format, including jazz orchestra, country fiddlers, and cowboy yodelers.³²

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Cemeteries are not immediately thought to be sites of visitation by outsiders, but in two Río Bravo border towns, Reynosa and Matamoros, the cemeteries were repeatedly represented in photographic postcards, and there is good evidence to suggest that the one in Matamoros—shown in twenty-four separate postcards—was a tourist attraction.³³ Early cemeteries were typically placed on the edge of town, often on land that could not be cultivated, like a shallow hill.³⁴ The cementerio antiguo (old cemetery) in Reynosa, located in the direction of the river west and slightly north of the plaza on a small loma, is seen in a postcard from the 1920s. The graveyard is positioned on the outskirts of town and separated by open fields from the built-up part of Reynosa, which is situated on the Loma de San Antonio in the background (see Fig. 1.10).³⁵ Another image from the 1900s shows a group of visitors about to enter the walled gate entrance to the old cemetery in Matamoros, which was situated on the south edge of town (see Fig. 1.7). The final image of the panteón (cemetery) in Matamoros in the 1910s pictures a groundskeeper waving to the camera. The elaborate and decorative crypts—common to Catholic cemeteries throughout Mexico—may suggest why so many non-Catholic tourists found these particular landscapes of the dead so exotic.

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FIG. 7.31

The old cemetery, Reynosa, 1920s. Attributed to Abrego Fot.

FIG. 7.32

Gate entrance to the old cemetery, Matamoros, 1900s.

FIG. 7.33

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Crypts in the old cemetery, Matamoros, 1910s.

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FIG. 8.1 Making tortillas for sale, Matamoros, 1900s. R. E. Bolado 16.

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8

EVERYDAY LIFE

in the early twentieth century, Río Bravo border settlements were small towns, and visitors recognized aspects of life both familiar and exotic, as one account related. Across from the Texas side of the Rio Grande, lies Mexican Laredo. It has a population of about 5,000 people and appears to be a lively, bustling little city. It is a typical Mexican town in every respect. The streets are narrow and lined with low stone buildings. Many of the houses are made of mud, and there is a general effect that is at once amusing and interesting to the visitor.¹

By midcentury, the border towns were shedding their small-town ambience and emerging as urban centers, albeit still Mexican cities in every respect, as one traveler said of Nuevo Laredo. As we walked through Nuevo Laredo, waiting for the bus to leave, it seemed in some ways as if we had entered the looking-glass double of the older town across the river. Laredo had been the most Mexican town we saw in the United States, and this was the most American town we were to see in Mexico. . . . But, despite its dependence on American money, despite the strength of American influences on its life, Nuevo Laredo was still Mexican in a way Laredo can never be again.²

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The persistence of everyday life is a common thread that allows a place to maintain an identity through time. While postcard photographers worked hard to capture and represent the feature landmarks of the path for tourist visitors, there was a constant pull—perhaps part of their ocular passion—to see the vernacular in every landscape. Domestic life, therefore, bleeds through in postcard images. In this chapter, we journey throughout the Río Bravo border towns in search of that everyday view, the ordinary landscape of fronterizo lives between the 1900s and 1950s. It is a rich canvas painted with scenes of daily chores, specialized occupations, local economy, entertainment venues, schools, parks, parades and celebrations, home life, and neighborly visits. As in Chapter 7, the images here are arranged in gallery format with a single caption that informs picture and place.

Daily life in the Río Bravo border towns, as in towns across Mexico during the early twentieth century, involved residents in household labor. An early print postcard shows the women and children of a household posed for the photographer in what was certainly a daily chore, making tortillas, the everyday bread of the working classes. The process involved grinding corn slaked with lime to create nixtamale, dough that could be hand shaped into pancake-like discs to be heated on a metal griddle. Tortillas were made daily for immediate consumption or for sale as a means of supplementing household income. The earthen and thatch jacal shown in this image was a common house type of the poor in areas of the Río Bravo borderland.³ Laundering, another daily domestic chore, was a popular representation in early twentieth-century postcards of Mexico. This view shows four women using what appear to be wooden washboard bowls to launder clothing along an estero (river meander) in Matamoros. A final image in this cluster shows two men walking through a Matamoros street with material strapped to their backs. One man is shouldering pieces of cut lumber, and another is hoisting handmade wooden crates, common containers for animals or fowls being transported to market.

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FIG. 8.2 Women washing, Matamoros, 1900s. E. Bennevendo Sucs.

FIG. 8.3

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“Like Beasts of Burden,” Matamoros, 1900s.

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Goat herders, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. PostMex 954.

FIG. 8.4

FIG. 8.5

The milkman, Villa Acuña, 1930s. Lippe Studio.

FIG. 8.6

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A Mexican ox cart, Matamoros, 1910s. Attributed to Robert Runyon 505.

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Beyond scenes of daily chores are those activities that bring sustenance to a household. Along the Río Bravo borderland, herding goats is a common livelihood. While much prestige can be attached to herding cattle and sheep, those livestock typically required large allotments of land to engage an economy of scale sufficient to make livelihood practical. Small ranches in northeast Mexico often managed by herding goats that are both more efficient browsers on smaller plots and capable of being organized by an individual without need of a horse. Goat meat is also widely popular in the region, especially kid goat, or cabrito, a kind of Mexican veal. The margins of the river, often called la vega by locals, was a commons that could be used by goat herders in the city. Before industrial production of milk, specialized producers in towns or on the margins of towns would provide for local consumption. Milk might be from goats or cows, but its delivery required human labor, and it was typically brought house to house in earthen jars carefully arranged in an open cart. These Mexican carretas, or carts, were a common device for carrying many different kinds of products. Oxen as well as mules were used to pull the carts. The final image in this group shows a nopalero, one who harvests nopal cactus, another Mexican favorite. The pads of the prickly pear cactus are shaved to remove spines and then cut into strips or diced. They are sometimes pickled for later consumption; at other times they are mixed and eaten with any number of complementary ingredients.⁴

Everyday Life

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Water delivery was a special enterprise in the Río Bravo border towns during the first few decades of the twentieth century. While cisterns were used to capture and supply water to many affluent residents, the poorer classes depended on barrileros, or, as they were known locally, piperos.⁵ Before standard water distribution systems in the border towns, barrileros were independent operators who would fetch water from the river, transport the barrel of liquid around town in specially designed two-wheeled carts pulled by donkeys or mules, and make deliveries to houses. Observers were not convinced about the quality of this water, and one longtime resident of the region commented, “But you’d think twice before you drank any of that red like water sloshing around in those barrels.”⁶ In one image, piperos are lined up along the river to collect water, and in another image they are waiting at a central water collection point to fill their barrels before distributing water across town. Businesses would have water delivered daily, as evident in the postcard of barrels being unloaded from carts parked in the street in front of Plaza Hidalgo in Matamoros.

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A water carrier, Matamoros, 1910s. Rómula E. Bolado.

FIG. 8.7

Collecting water from the river, Reynosa, 1920s. FIG. 8.8

Filling water barrels, Matamoros, 1910s. Attributed to Robert Runyon 169. FIG. 8.9

Water delivery to businesses, Matamoros, 1910s.

FIG. 8.10

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FIG. 8.11

FIG. 8.12

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Shop selling blankets, ropes, and baskets, Matamoros, 1900s.

Shop selling produce, baskets, and clay pots, Matamoros, 1900s. E. Bennevendo Sucs.

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Individual proprietorship was a highly prized occupation and could be both general as well as specialized in the types of goods vended. Small merchants that catered to local residents were the backbone of border town commercial enterprise. In addition to the sale of fresh produce, household goods like baskets and pots were regularly sold. Because cooking and drinking vessels were chiefly clay pots, there was a ready business for these products, which were typically produced elsewhere and shipped to the border.⁷ Blankets, ropes, and leather were the plastics of today, and the consumption of these products used to cover, bind, and strap meant that the articles were in regular demand. These images capture two early views of tiendas, or shops, in Matamoros, one specializing in blankets (mantas), ropes (cuerdas), and baskets (canastas), another in chiles, yams, and onions, along with baskets and small clay pots. In each image, husband and wife shopkeepers stand proudly amid their well-stocked inventories.

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Early twentieth-century domestic building styles in Río Bravo border towns followed conventions found across Mexico. Working-class residents might shelter in a jacal on the outskirts of town (as illustrated in Fig. 8.1). Typically, homes in the upper-income neighborhoods like those on Calle Morelos in Ciudad Piedras Negras were built of stone with a stucco exterior, flat roofed with large windows covered by rejas (iron bars), and positioned tight to the street.⁸ This streetscape could be found in any of the Río Bravo border towns. In Matamoros, these “more pretentious homes” formed “a continuous line of brick wall, flush with the sidewalk, from corner to corner,” which were “one-storey buildings, with flat roofs . . . and [had] windows with heavy iron gratings which project slightly.”⁹ Pitched-roof houses and especially two-story dwellings signaled affluence and, in some instances, contact with American building styles. Subdivisions constructed in the 1950s, like Colonia Jardín in Matamoros, were typically in keeping with North American building practices. Houses were set back from the paved street with enclosed front and back yards, followed a popular architecture style, such as Spanish Revival, common to the era, and boasted exotic landscaping, including a front lawn, which was a largely alien notion to historic Mexican residential townscapes.¹⁰

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FIG. 8.13

Upper-income homes on Calle Morelos, Ciudad Piedras Negras, 1910s.

FIG. 8.14

Subdivision Colonia Jardín, Matamoros, 1950s. México Fotográfico 44.

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FIG. 8.15

FIG. 8.16

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The wool market, Ciudad Porfirio Díaz, 1900s.

Railroad shops, Ciudad Porfirio Díaz, 1900s.

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Sheep ranching is a livestock practice first introduced to northern Mexico and the American Southwest in colonial times. By the early twentieth century, large landed estates in the north, like the Sanchez-Navarro hacienda in Coahuila, began to sell portions of their holdings to foreigners who desired to establish themselves in Mexico. The McKellar clan, of Scottish ancestry, having recently immigrated to the United States from Australia, was one of these foreign investor families who settled in Coahuila and helped revive the wool industry in the hinterlands of Piedras Negras.¹¹ Wool was carted or sent by rail to Piedras Negras, where it was loaded on boxcars for shipment to the American market. Ciudad Porfirio Díaz (later Piedras Negras), one of the major railroad gateways along the Río Bravo border, maintained a railroad yard, shops, and roundhouse for servicing locomotives. This gave the town a specialized industrial workforce that was uncommon for early river settlements. Reynosa became a unique border town in 1950 when Pemex, the Mexican national petroleum company, opened a facility to process natural gas and petroleum, which was chiefly returned via pipeline to the industrial center of the country.¹² Specialized economies were part of the perceived progressiveness of Río Bravo towns and thus came to be represented in postcard images.

Oil derrick, Reynosa, 1950s. México Fotográfico 90.

FIG. 8.17

Everyday Life

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Performing arts houses have been present in Río Bravo settlements from the midnineteenth century. One of the oldest is the Teatro de la Reforma, still located on the corner of Calle Sexta and Calle Abasola only a block from the plaza in Matamoros. The opera house, as Americans called it, was constructed between 1860 and 1866.¹³ The Teatro has a three-story brick-and-brownstone façade with central pillars enclosing a loggia that enabled patrons to gather between acts and to view the street; iron balconies with shuttered windows flanked the pillared second-floor opening. The Teatro showed films in the early twentieth century and was therefore identified as the “Teatro Cíne Anteo” in as many as half-dozen postcard images from the 1900s to 1950s.¹⁴ In Nuevo Laredo, several cínes flanked Plaza Hidalgo by the 1940s, including the Teatro Cíne América, an exclusive movie theater seen here with its modern architectural façade. Popular theaters in other towns included the Cíne Acuña in Piedras Negras and the Teatro Juárez and Cíne Brasil in Reynosa.¹⁵ During the 1950s, movie theaters became so popular in Reynosa that one resident recalls six cínes within a block of Plaza Hidalgo.¹⁶

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FIG. 8.18

Teatro de la Reforma (Teatro Cine Anteo), Matamoros, 1930s. México Fotográfico 38.

FIG. 8.19

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Teatro Cine América, Nuevo Laredo, 1940s. Desentis, Jr., 709.

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FIG. 8.20

FIG. 8.21

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The Girls’ School, Matamoros, 1900s.

The Madero School, Piedras Negras, 1910s.

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Schools, whether public or private, were popular depictions in early twentieth-century border towns, as they were in towns across America in the same era. Every Río Bravo town boasted of at least one school, and typically photographers captured an image of the place for tourist sale. Representation of a schoolhouse or building was common, but not all images showed students, so these selections are unusual in that regard. Private schools were by convention religiously affiliated. The Girls’ School image is back labeled the “Boarding Department” of the Mexico Presbyterian Mission in Matamoros. Presbyterian missionaries were aggressive throughout Mexico in the early twentieth century.¹⁷ The Madero School in Piedras Negras—named after the father of the Mexican Revolution Francisco Madero, who hailed from Coahuila—appears to be an elementary-level, singleroom schoolhouse in what must have been a stylish building for its day.¹⁸ Several of the young men nearest the entrance are wielding baseball bats. The American pastime may have been introduced in Mexico by railroad workers in the late nineteenth century.¹⁹

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Beyond plazas, public spaces oriented to residents in the Río Bravo towns included many kinds of gathering spots, like parks and outdoor eateries. Although parks included walkways and benches, they differed from plazas chiefly through the inclusion of recreational equipment, sport fields, or swimming pools. Children are seen on a merry-go-round and on swings in a park in Nuevo Laredo that was proximate to the power plant (seen in background) that produced electricity for the city. Outdoor eateries were chiefly for locals. A counter at the Juárez Market in Matamoros, here called Restaurant Mexicano, served exclusively men. Gendered spaces, or areas restricted to men rather than women, extended to drinking halls and other establishments.

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FIG. 8.22

A park, Nuevo Laredo, 1930s. México Fotográfico.

FIG. 8.23

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Restaurant Mexicano, Matamoros, 1910s.

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FIG. 8.24

FIG. 8.25

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Mexican family, Matamoros, 1900s.

Home garden, Matamoros, 1920s. Juan C. Villarreal.

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Scenes of domesticity rarely extended to the homes of Río Bravo border town residents. The exception to this was the stereotyped photographic representation of Mexicans in jacales, thatched roof or primitive wood dwellings common in Mexico and in the Mexican Southwest of the United States (Fig. 8.1). Another exception was when the photographer was a friend or relative of the local residents. The Mexican family image here is part of a series of photographic postcards made by a member of a group that is visiting relatives in Matamoros. The same adults are seen in Figure 7.32 entering the cemetery in Matamoros, and a third photo postcard of the group (not pictured) shows them in Plaza Hidalgo in the same city.²⁰ The initials of the photographer are distinctive and appear in each numbered photograph. The second image here, a view from inside the enclosed patio of a home in Matamoros, shows three women (sisters?) and their garden. This is the only postcard in my collection by the photographer Juan C. Villareal, and it may represent a rare example of a snapshot made on postcard stock as a gift to the family. The card is not posted. The verso shows Villareal’s ink stamp in Figure 2.5.

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Celebrations are activities that quite naturally draw photographers to capture the moment, and postcard photographers were keen to capitalize on them. It is reported that some five thousand celebrations occur annually in Mexico and that no more than nine days pass without a celebration somewhere in the republic.²¹ Parades can accompany any number of special events, like the one depicted on Calle Sexta looking south on the west edge of Hidalgo Plaza in Matamoros sometime in the 1920s. Banners in this image suggest the colors of the Mexican flag, so this might be the Diez y Seis de Septiembre celebration, Mexican Independence Day, September 16. Matamoros celebrated its centennial in 1926, and the postcard on the following page captures some of the grandeur of that event.²² The image appears to show a queen— crowned and seated—surrounded by her entourage, which is positioned on a platform festooned with flowers and palms in front of the plaza de toros, or bullring, no doubt the largest seating accommodation in the town and a perfect stage for a large popular gathering.

FIG. 8.26

208

Parade on Calle Sexta, Matamoros, 1920s.

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FIG. 8.27

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Centennial celebration, Matamoros, 1920s. Attributed to Abrego Fot.

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FIG. 8.28

FIG. 8.29

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Hotel Central, Piedras Negras, 1920s.

U.S. Customs inspection, Edinburg, Texas, 1900s.

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Visitors to Piedras Negras in the early twentieth century might have considered patronizing the Hotel Central at 403 Allende Street, a hostelry that advertised a “First Class Restaurant,” which included “Special Mexican and Chinese Dishes” along with “French Cooking.” On the verso of this photographic postcard, Proprietor F. Chong insists, “We guarantee our customers attentive service, reasonable prices, and perfect cleanliness.” Also noted is that meals could be served in the cool patio garden, seen in the recto image. There is no mention of the fauna: two deer, two monkeys, and a parrot. Chinese have been an important population in Mexico since the nineteenth century, and while their numbers are most often recognized for border towns like Mexicali and Nogales, every Río Bravo town had some Asians who intermarried with the Mexicans.²³ Río Bravo border town residents, not surprisingly, have maintained close connections to Mexican ancestors resident in U.S. Rio Grande border settlements. The second image captures Mexicans, perhaps from Reynosa, clearing U.S. Customs in Edinburg, a Texas town and seat of Hidalgo County across the river and proximate to Reynosa. To the present, many residents in the towns of the Rio Grande Valley maintain familial networks on both sides of the river.²⁴

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9

VIEW OF THE PLACE, PLACE OF THE VIEW

the capacity to picture places has been called the “geographical imagination,” and it is one of the most basic ways we transform space into place. In 1502, Leonardo Da Vinci painted what may have been the first accurate aerial view of an Italian city, showing with precision streets, squares, houses, and fortifications. Almost three centuries later, in 1796, German Aloys Senefelder invented lithography, enabling generations of printmaking that depicted, among other things, town views from a bird’s-eye perspective, a practice that became a popular way to represent places in the nineteenth century. In 1856, Nadir (GaspardFélix Tournachon) opened a Paris studio specializing in aerial photography and ten years later produced perhaps the first views of Paris from a balloon.¹ Representations of place became commonplace with the growth of popular photography, and postcard images were part of this process. Critical in this project has been the afterlife of the image.² As a representation, a picture postcard is most valuable as an icon, and the utility of the image in a historical capacity is in the legacy of that image, what it can tell us about place in retrospect. In this sense, my concern has been with the backstory of the postcard image, what geographer Steven Hoelscher calls the “social context of image representation.”³ An important question in that story has been how pictured places get coded into a landscape, thereby symbolizing a place for the tourist gaze. Geographer John Jakle asks, “What are the prevailing icons of place through which touristic meanings are communicated?”⁴ Sociologist Dean MacCannell created a typology

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to shed light on this process. A place or site becomes enshrined, says MacCannell, especially once mechanical reproduction in the form of imagery is produced and disseminated.⁵ This book chronicles picture postcard views of five Río Bravo Mexican border towns from the early 1900s through the 1950s. During this era, most of these river settlements transitioned from small towns to large cities. Tourist visitors were drawn to the towns from the earliest days, as Mexico represented an exotic land and the border towns were gateways to the interior of the country. By the late 1940s and into the 1950s, Río Bravo border towns emerged as popular destinations for visitors from across the United States and around the world. Postcards were part of this emerging place popularity. In his monumental book The Postcard Century: 2000 Cards and Their Messages, which chronicles the messaging on postcards sent around the world during the twentieth century, collector Tom Phillips notes that patterns and practices of postcard messages change from one generation to next.⁶ What persists, however, is the desire to possess picture postcards, especially before the widespread adoption of personal cameras. The card was a memento of having been in a place and permitted a sharing of that knowledge with friends and family back home. However, not all acquired postcards were mailed. Tourists often accumulated cards from a visit and returned home with their treasures to be mounted in an album for personal reflection. Many cards, therefore, were never posted. At other times, visitors composed messages on the cards but did not mail them. It thereby follows that postcards purchased by tourists to the Río Bravo border towns both anchored a memory of the place and potentially stimulated a desire to see the place among those who received posted cards. In some of the postcard images reproduced in the chapters here, postcards for sale are both advertised on building exteriors and visible on racks in interior scenes, testifying to the common availability of this type of popular imagery (see Figs. 5.11, 6.14, 7.17, 7.22, and 7.23).

VIEW OF TH E PL ACE The Río Bravo border towns became popular tourist attractions in the early decades of the twentieth century, and postcard imagery was perhaps the most popular means to see these places. Postcard photographers created images of specific places in these towns, and those pictures shaped a visual itinerary for visitors including the landscapes of gateways, streets, plazas, attractions, businesses and landmarks, and everyday life. Through this imagery, the visitor experience to Río Bravo border towns was enhanced, fashioning a space into a place in the minds of tourists exposed to the pictures.

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Gateways were the first viewscape encountered by the tourist visitor. Postcard photographers chronicled the landscape of bridges and their associated crossing thresholds. Bridges were a progressive feature along the Río Bravo. On the one hand, they clearly created access and connection to the American town on the opposite bank, thereby serving to convey visitors to the Mexican border town. On the other hand, they were symbolically more than physical spans. This is seen in the evolution of bridge forms, starting with simple wooden constructions that, in time, were replaced by modern steel trestles, often with ornate design elements that mirrored the most contemporary fashion. Some, like El Puente Colgante at Reynosa, a suspension bridge, were significant technological achievements in the early decades of the century, and others, like the Citizens Bridge linking Villa Acuña to Del Rio, boasted that it was the longest single span connecting two border towns. Laredo–Nuevo Laredo’s Puente de Los Arcos, a graceful concrete arched structure, became a landmark to a generation of border visitors and residents alike until its destruction by flood at mid-century. Communities thus identified with their bridges, often hosting celebrations on the bridges, as seen in Nuevo Laredo–Laredo and Villa Acuña–Del Rio. Postcard photographers presented bridges as necessary elements of the tourist path but also as representatives of the growing technical sophistication and cultural linkage among border towns. Beyond the marvel of the physical gateway was the process of crossing between two countries and the varieties of transport encountered. Matamoros from the early 1900s until the construction of the Gateway Bridge in 1926, perhaps more so than any other Río Bravo border town, captivated both visitor and postcard photographer with its watercraft to mule- and auto-powered-streetcar conveyance, a process that took time because of the peculiar site of the Mexican border town, where the plaza and center of the community were so distant from the river crossing. Transport and the journey it required created difference at Matamoros, and that peculiarity became a popular novelty, repeatedly documented visually by a generation of postcard photographers. From the gateway, tourist visitors were directed along a street that served as a linear entertainment zone, a landscape in part created to host them and to entice them along a structured path. This experience was not an unfamiliar one to many Americans, who were comfortable with the main streets of their own towns across the country. In the Río Bravo border towns, the anatomy of the street may have been familiar, but the services rendered were decidedly contrived to appeal to visitor sensibilities, typically including the bar, the exotic restaurant, and the curio store. These businesses along or proximate to a main street were the magnets that beckoned the tourist, providing temporary pause from the forward motion of the path, a place to revel in the prohibitions of an

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era, to dine casually and consume the tastes of a foreign land, and to open their wallets to buy souvenirs, which, once purchased, substantiated their visit to the border. Streets, like bridges, also served the photographers’ purpose to frame the border town as a modern commercial landscape, one defined by substantial architecture, electrification, pavement, sidewalks, and a barrage of advertisements through signs. Calle Zaragoza in Piedras Negras and Avenida Guerrero in Nuevo Laredo could compare favorably with many an American town main street, both in physical infrastructure and the daily flow of activity. Postcard imagery made plain that Río Bravo border towns were not so peripheral to a modern world; in fact, they seemed right in step with most contemporary streetscapes of their time. The plaza, like the main street, was a form familiar to Americans of the first half of the twentieth century because it resembled the town squares and small urban parks of their homeland. Its configuration in the Río Bravo border towns was a constant, part of the landscape of every town and encountered regularly as a respite along the tourist path. The centrality and socially attractive function of this space was also apparent to the postcard photographer, who snapped image after image of plaza spaces in the Mexican border towns of the Río Bravo. Plazas were postcard fixes that enabled views of public architecture through the landmark churches and municipal buildings that typically surrounded the space. They similarly showcased attention to public display because often plazas were the best-maintained spaces in border towns, kept clean and tidy to fulfill their social role as strolling and sitting areas in the community. After streets, plazas were possibly the most representative images of these towns. While chapter vignettes explored the vibrancy of Reynosa’s Plaza Hidalgo and the sleepy neighborhood charm of Villa Acuña’s Plaza Benjamín Canales, every Río Bravo border town was thoroughly documented by postcard photographers, who typically produced dozens of images of a single plaza from every imaginable angle. Reynosa’s main plaza alone between the 1900s and 1950s is featured in 126 separate postcards in my collection. Attractions—gathering places that accommodated large crowds but that were fewer in number in the typical border town than businesses or landmarks— were popular views for the postcard photographer’s lens. In the Río Bravo towns, attractions like mercados (markets) and plazas de toros (bullrings) were especially alluring to tourists, in part because these daily exchange and event places allowed them to rub shoulders with local residents. Markets like Mercado Juárez in Matamoros and Mercado Maclovio Herrera in Nuevo Laredo were large indoor-outdoor spaces. Commodities of many varieties could be found at the mercados, including produce and meat, household goods, and even curios

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appealing to the tourist visitor. Mercados were attractive as well to the image producer, mirroring as they did the bread and circus of daily commerce and the vitality of place. Beyond views of gateways, streets, plazas, businesses, and landmarks were the many scenes of everyday life that proved enticing to postcard photographers and ultimately to some visitors, who might wander off the tourist path. Like an observant walker in the city, the postcard photographer encountered and captured scenes of local domesticity, which became postcard subjects. Perhaps the most common of these varied views were scenes of residents at work. In the Río Bravo border towns, there were postcard images of women making tortillas and washing clothes alongside views of men performing many delivery tasks. Certainly one of the most popular and enduring work image types was that of street vendors, especially the pipero, or water cart deliveryman, so commonly represented in postcards of Matamoros. Río Bravo border town postcard views followed a nomenclature similar to that used for postcard photographers and their subjects in American towns. Collectors Robert Bogdan and Todd Weseloh defined some sixteen categories for photographic postcards between 1900 and 1930.⁷ Thirteen of these categories are represented by postcard views illustrated in this book, including streets, businesses, municipal buildings, transportation, bridges, schools, churches, homes, recreational areas, celebrations, disasters, work, and bird’s-eye views. These representations of the vernacular were central to the purpose of postcard imagery, to exhibit people and place. In this manner, as suggested by geographer John Jakle, “The postcard commodified the city as visual display” and “democratized the urban view, embracing as it did the more commonplace alongside the monumental.”⁸

PL ACE OF TH E VIEW In his essay “The Stranger’s Path”—a description I used in this project as a metaphor for the tourist-visitor path through the Río Bravo border towns—J. B. Jackson challenged us to awaken our senses to a part of the American downtown of the 1950s increasingly neglected as populations fled to suburbs. Speaking about the bias to seeing suburbs as the only landscape worthy of recognition in postwar America, Jackson proclaimed, “Perhaps I do them injustice, but I often have the feeling that their emphasis on convenience, cleanliness, and safety, their distrust of everything vulgar and small and poor, is symptomatic of a very lopsided view of urban culture.”⁹ It might be said that Mexican border towns have suffered the same pejorative view vis-à-vis the towns of the Mexican interior, which have been celebrated

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for their Spanish colonial heritage or Native American allure. Río Bravo border towns, like so many Mexican border cities, chiefly have been seen as onedimensional, mere tourist locales at the backdoor of America.¹⁰ This idée fixe simplifies place, and thereby the place becomes signified as less than genuine. It is an unfortunate corruption because border towns are as authentic as any other place—different, perhaps, but no less authentic. What is missing from that bias is an appreciation that even tourist spots create a landscape that appeals and that landscape is an important medium for telling the story of place. Postcards from the Río Bravo Border relates the ways that sight and site are intertwined. The postcard photographer’s commercial art is the surviving validation of the authenticity of these places because it freezes people and place to capture a view of a day. At some other day forward that image can be a highly specialized historical lens used to look back. The popularity of the Río Bravo border towns during the first half of the twentieth century as shown through postcard imagery suggests that these peripheral and seemingly provincial places were, in fact, enormously attractive to American tourists. When mass popularity is wed to convenient and easily disseminated views of place, visual culture can enhance the place of the view. Postcards facilitated a popularity of place by structuring a way to see the Río Bravo Mexican border towns. In turn, the place that is viewed is seen to be more modern than we might imagine. By midtwentieth century, Río Bravo border towns were as sophisticated and developed, at least in their tourist centers, as many towns in the interior of Mexico. Postcard imagery as shown in this project has a utility beyond nostalgia and any particular longing to visit the past of a place. Because postcards were a commercial product, and because each generation of photographers tended to photograph the same scenes repeatedly, today this form of visual culture, if organized systematically, not only has the potential to reproduce a past view through rephotography, it also has the unusual power to construct a serial view of place, seeing place through time. This is a rare quality in the visual arts because few if any other media forms enable this kind of vision for so many places. This study of Río Bravo border towns from the 1900s through the 1950s has been an exercise in viewing the place and placing the view, a means for coming to understand how places are shaped by popular culture through media. In speaking about the everyday landscape, geographer D. W. Meinig remarked, “We are dealing primarily with vernacular culture . . . . Anyone can look but we all need help to see that it is at once a panorama, a composition, a palimpsest, a microcosm; that in every prospect there can be more and more that meets the eye.”¹¹ And so it has been for Río Bravo border towns during the first half of the twentieth century.

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Picture postcards are windows to the landscapes and peoples of these places. They capture an important phase of border town life, they enable us to resurrect the geography of the visitor experience and the photographer’s view of local cultures, and they can afford a way to see change through time that may be unique among media of the visual arts.

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APPENDIX

POSTCARD WRITINGS

this brief essay describes some of the writings and sources used in this project and other useful references that can be pursued to expand one’s knowledge about postcards. The essay is divided into general, special subject, topical, photographic postcard, and Mexico categories. These categories and sources should not be taken as anything close to a complete bibliography, as the writings about postcards can be diverse and spread across many materials from books, to periodicals, and to websites. Complete citations for all references given below are found in the Bibliography.

GENER AL General reference materials are sources that discuss the history of postcards, types of postcards, postcard companies, or the history of matters related to postcards like types, messages, and famous collectors. J. R. Burdick’s Pioneer Post Cards: The Story of Mailing Cards to 1898 with an Illustrated Checklist of Publishers and Titles is an early authority about so-called private mailing cards, the predecessors to American postcards. Several sources discuss the early history of postcards and picture postcards including Frank Staff, The Picture Postcard and Its Origins; Richard Carline, Pictures in the Post: The Story of the Picture Postcard and Its Place in the History of Popular Art; and George Miller and Dorothy Miller, Picture Postcards in the United States, 1893–1918. Jack H. Smith’s Postcard

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Companion: The Collector’s Reference is an encyclopedic reference that covers postcard history, publishers, artists, categories and types, books about postcards, postcard publications, dealers, shows, clubs, and colophons. Similarly useful is Susan Brown Nicholson’s Encyclopedia of Antique Postcards. An excellent source about postcards, including illustrated pages about history, publishers, copyright, and an extensive glossary of postcard-related terminology, is the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City, the oldest continuously operated postcard club in the United States, holding forth in regular meetings and sponsoring shows since 1946 (www.metropostcard.com). For details about American deltiology, see D. R. Brown, “The Institute of American Deltiology: An Emerging Resource.”

S P EC I AL SUBJECTS Several books have recently investigated specialized subjects about postcards. Mark Werther and Lorenzo Mott’s Linen Postcards: Images of the American Dream is a handsome volume that illustrates and discusses the American linen postcard popular from the early 1930s to the early 1950s. Produced by companies like Curt Teich, Chicago; Tichnor Brothers, Boston; E.C. Kropp, Milwaukee; Nationwide Postcard Company, Arlington, Texas; and Dexter Press, Pearl River, New York, the linen postcard presented an idealized color vision of a transforming America during this era. Another important special subject book is Tom Phillips’s The Postcard Century: 2000 Cards and Their Messages. This unique and comprehensive work assesses the changing styles of postcards and their messages over a century to understand how the common postcard affected global communication. An insightful specialized volume about postcards is Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard by Jeff L. Rosenheim, published on the occasion of the exhibition “Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 3—May 25, 2009. This catalogue documents and explains how the famous photographer developed his early interest in vernacular landscapes by collecting postcards of American towns and highlights some of the 9,000 postcards that were his private collection. Writings about postcard production companies include several stories about the Curt Teich Company, the most prolific manufacturer of print postcards in the United States between 1893 and 1974. See Lewis Baer, “The Curt Teich Archives”; and K. Hamilton-Smith, “The Curt Teich Postcard Archive: Dedicated to the Postcard as a Document Type.” The Detroit Publishing Company Postcards by Nancy Stickels Stechschulte is as close to a complete catalogue as one might hope to find about this amazing company, which produced more than 19,000 separate

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postcard images between 1895 and 1935. See also the Detroit Publishing Company Collection in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room of the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/202_detr.html); and Detroit Publishing Company, List of Photographs: American Scenes and Architecture, Section I of Catalogue “P”.

TOPICAL Topical writings about postcards cover a wide swath of published material from scholarly volumes and articles to informed books oriented to the specialized collector and general reader. The bibliographies for any of the general references given above as well as writings referenced below can prove a rich beginning for the novice enthusiast. I’ve described here only those items that have proved especially useful to my own research. A good introduction to a number of author’s writings about postcards and cultures is Christraud M. Geary and Virginia-Lee Webb, editors, Delivering Views: Distant Cultures in Early Postcards. This volume includes illustrated and finely written chapters about the history of international postcards, postcards and world’s fairs, and postcard representations of Plains Indians, Japanese, Pacific Islanders, and Africans. Cultural and historical geographer John A. Jakle has used postcards in many of his books, but two in particular deserve special mention for their topical focus: The American Small Town: Twentieth-Century Place Images was an early exploration of how places were represented in visual images, including postcards, and Postcards of the Night: Views of American Cities is a path-breaking assessment of how postcards imagined and later represented night views of American cities. The book covers some fifty-seven different cities seen through postcards from 1905 to 1975 and includes a most useful appendix and guide to postcard sources and collecting. Scholarly writing that assesses the use and application of postcards is a growing literature and can be considered topical. A complete list of such sources is beyond the scope of this essay. Here is a small sampling of works that chiefly emphasizes the writings of geographers and historians. N. Schor, “Cartes Postales: Representing Paris, 1900”; Michael Crang, “Envisioning Urban Histories: Bristol as Palimpsest, Postcards, and Snapshots”; Jeffrey L. Meikle, “A Paper Atlantis: Postcards, Mass Art, and the American Scene”; Gordon Waitt and Lesley Head, “Postcards and Frontier Mythologies: Sustaining Views of the Kimberley as Timeless”; Daniel D. Arreola, “The Picture Postcard Mexican Housescape: Visual Culture and Domestic Identity”; Karen DeBres and Jacob Sowers, “The Emergence of Standardized, Idealized, and Placeless Landscapes in Midwestern Main Street Postcards”; and Yolonda Youngs, “On Grand Canyon Postcards.”

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PHOTO GR APH IC P OSTCARDS Real photographic postcards have become a favorite of collectors and scholars in the past few decades. The pioneering work about American photo postcards is Hal Morgan and Andreas Brown, Prairie Fires and Paper Moons: The American Photographic Postcard: 1900–1920. Sociologist and photographic postcard aficionado, collector, and author Robert Bogdan has been a prolific researcher and avid contributor to the further understanding of this postcard format. His many books include Exposing the Wilderness: Early-Twentieth-Century Adirondack Postcard Photographers, Adirondack Vernacular: The Photography of Henry M. Beach, and, with Arnold Arluke, Beauty and the Beast: Human-Animal Relations as Revealed in Real Photo Postcards, 1905–1935. Bogdan’s book with Todd Weseloh, Real Photo Postcard Guide: The People’s Photography, is the single most informative source about the history of the photographic postcard in the United States, a veritable Baedecker for the serious postcard collector. Its bibliography alone is fundamental for any postcard scholar. Two thoughtful and important contributions to the general understanding of real photographic postcards in the United States are Rosamond B. Vaule, As We Were: American Photographic Postcards, 1905–1930; and Luc Sante, Folk Photography: The American Real-Photo Postcard 1905—1930. Vaule and Sante each explore the nature of photographic postcards generally as well as topically. Vaule’s book describes photo postcards representing home, work, play, celebration, and transportation as well as disasters, local events, and war. Sante’s exploration depends on his personal collection to illustrate the enormous variety of subjects for photographic postcards in the United States, but also with a few examples from Mexico; the volume includes an introductory essay with a gallery of some 121 images. Beyond books about photo postcards in general, there are contributions that illustrate how photo postcards are used to express regional understanding. Two exemplars here are Jeremy Rowe, Arizona Real Photo Postcards: A History and Portfolio; and John Miller Morris, Taming the Land: The Lost Postcard Photographs of the Texas High Plains. Both Rowe and Morris are nationally recognized regional specialists with outstanding collections that document their respective areas. Rowe has curated exhibitions at museums, worked for the Library of Congress American Memory Project, and published on Arizona nineteenth- and twentieth-century photographers. A recent paper sheds important light on Burton Frasher’s photographic postcards of Arizona, see Jeremy Rowe, “Have Camera, Will Travel: Arizona Roadside Images by Burton Frasher.” Special mention needs to be made for Ania Michas, Real and Other Photos: An

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Introduction to the History, Identification and Collectability of Early Photographic Postcards. This document may be the most elaborate technical treatise on the historical production and process of photo postcard manufacture. It is both an illustrated tour de force and a succinct assessment of how photo postcards came to be and especially how they were made.

MEXICO The early history of postcards in Mexico is handsomely set forth in Isabel Fernández Tejedo, Memories of Mexico: Mexican Postcards, 1882–1930. A special issue of the Mexico City publication Artes de Mexico was devoted to “La Tarjeta Postal,” including essays about Hugo Brehme by Susan Toomey Frost (“El México Pintoresco de Brehme”) and the U.S-Mexico border by Paul Vanderwood (“Postcards from the Border”). A detailed and finely illustrated website Fotógrafos de la Revolución by Arturo Guevara Escobar (http://fotografosdelarevolucion.blogspot.com) contains a great deal of information about major Mexican photographers and the Mexican postcard. Francisco Montellano, an avid Mexican postcard collector, is the acknowledged authority for the Mexican photographic images of American Charles B. Waite; see his C. B. Waite, Fotógrafo: Una Mirada Diversa sobre el México de Principios del Siglo XX, and Charles B. Waite: La Epoca de Oro de las Postales en México. Similarly, Susan Toomey Frost, collector extraordinaire, is the leading authority for the Mexican imagery including postcards by Hugo Brehme; see her Timeless Mexico: The Photographs of Hugo Brehme. Eugenio Espino Barros, who photographed extensively in Northeast Mexico, including real photo postcards of places in the states of Veracruz and Tamaulipas, is exposed in his Eugenio Espino Barros, Fotográfo Moderno. Several recent writings have illuminated two of the principal twentiethcentury photographic companies in Mexico that produced postcards, La Compañía México Fotográfico (MF) and La Compañía Industrial Fotográfica (CIF). See Mayra N. Uribe Eguiluz, Una Aproximación a La Compañía México Fotográfico y la Promoción del Turismo al Finales de los Años Veinte; Lilia Laureano Martínez, Fotorretratos de Artistas de 1918 a 1926, Una Mirada a la Compañía Industrial Fotográfica; and Teresa Matabuena Peláez, La Ciudad de México a Través de la Compañía Industrial Fotográfica. One of the earliest writings about border postcard photographers was Mary A. Sarber, “W. H. Horne and the Mexican War Photo Postcard Company.” By all accounts, the pioneering book Border Fury: A Picture Postcard Record of Mexico’s Revolution and U.S. War Preparedness, 1910—1917 by Paul J. Vanderwood and Frank N. Samponaro was a benchmark achievement in the historiography of Mexican

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postcard writings. It remains a standard reference still and is one of the only American postcard books to have been translated into Spanish; see Los Rostros de la Batalla, Furia en la Frontera México-Estados Unidos, 1910–1917. Two Baja California border cities have been documented through postcards: Mexicali and Tijuana. Unfortunately, these volumes were produced in limited quantities as gifts for political patrons and are, therefore, quite scarce. See Héctor Manuel Lucero Velasco and Iliana Terán, Mexicali, 100 Años: Arquitectura y Urbanismo en el Desierto del Colorado; and Kurt Ignacio H. Morales, Tijuana: Identidades y Nostalgias: La Colección de André Williams. The latter is a monumental tome that explores the visual history of one of the largest border cities through postcards, maps, and other imagery from the enormous collection of Swiss-born Tijuanense André Williams. Finally, a handful of papers by my students and myself have begun to document the visual past of selected Mexican border cities. See Daniel D. Arreola, “La Cerca y Las Garitas de Ambos Nogales: A Postcard Landscape Exploration”; John Finn, Arianna Fernandez, Lindsey Sutton, Daniel D. Arreola, Casey D. Allen, and Claire Smith, “Puerto Peñasco: Fishing Village to Tourist Mecca”; Daniel D. Arreola and Nick Burkhart, “Photographic Postcards and Visual Urban Landscape”; and Daniel D. Arreola, “La Macarena, the Most Beautiful Place in the Best Town on the Border.” A website “Border Postcard Views: Historic Imagery from Mexican Border Cities” (http://borderpostcardviews.asu.edu/) is in the initial stages of cataloging my personal collection and presently includes photographic postcards for Sonora border towns.

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NOTES

PRE FACE 1. Cited in Michas, Real and Other Photos, iii. 2. See Klett, Manchester, and Verburg, Second View; Klett, Bajakian, et al., Third Views, Second Sights; Klett with Lundgren, After the Ruins. 3. Arreola and Curtis, The Mexican Border Cities; Arreola, “The Mexico-US Borderlands through Two Decades.” 4. Mraz, “Photographing Mexico,” 196.

IN TRO DUCTIO N 1. Crouch and Lübbren, Visual Culture and Tourism, 2–3. 2. Schwartz and Ryan, Picturing Place, 1–9. 3. Gregory, “Scripting Egypt,” 114–150; Jakle, The Tourist, 5. 4. Arreola and Burkhart, “Photographic Postcards and Visual Urban Landscape,” 886–888. 5. Meinig, “The Beholding Eye,” 33–34. 6. Mraz, Looking for Mexico, 3. See also Roberto Tejada, National Camera; Nancy Martha West, Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia. 7. Crouch and Lübbren, Visual Culture and Tourism, 8–12; MacCannell, The Tourist; Urry, The Tourist Gaze. 8. Urry, The Tourist Gaze, 124; Crawshaw and Urry, “Tourism and the Photographic Eye,” 176. 9. Geary and Webb, Delivering Views; Jakle, The American Small Town. 10. Jackson, “The Stranger’s Path,” 11–15; Meinig, “Reading the Landscape,” 210–232. 11. Jakle and Wilson, Derelict Landscapes, 93–104.

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C HA PTER 1 1. Arreola and Curtis, The Mexican Border Cities. 2. Arreola, Tejano South Texas, 11–19. 3. Paredes Manzano, La Casa Mata, 11; Herrera, El Fuerte Casamata, 18. 4. Herrera Pérez, Monografía de Reynosa, 38–39. 5. Villarello, La Fundación de Piedras Negras, Coahuila, 15. 6. Flores Revuelta and Canales Santos, Piedras Negras, 35; Canales Santos, Piedras Negras, 122–123. 7. Cuéllar Valdes, Historia del Estado de Coahuila, 175–244; Braudaway, Del Rio, 72–78. 8. Hall and Coerver, Revolution on the Border, 16. 9. Samponaro and Vanderwood, War Scare on the Rio Grande, 81. 10. Coerver and Hall, Texas and the Mexican Revolution, 3. 11. Paredes Manzano, La Casa Mata, 11; Garza González, Nuevo Laredo en Llamas, 15. 12. Wichita Weekly Times, “Mexican Affairs Again Serious”; Lott, The Story of Reynosa. 13. Calderon, Mexican Coal Mining Labor in Texas and Coahuila, 1880–1930, 90. 14. García’s Studio, Destruction of Nuevo Laredo Mexico, April 24, 1914; Samponaro and Vanderwood, War Scare on the Rio Grande. 15. Ganster and Lorey, The U.S.-Mexican Border into the Twenty-First Century, 45–48. 16. Robinson, Vice and Tourism on the U.S.-Mexico Border, 134–136. 17. Arreola and Curtis, The Mexican Border Cities, 102; Ganster and Lorey, The U.S.-Mexican Border into the Twenty-First Century, 77; McCrossen, “Drawing Boundaries between Markets, Nations, and Peoples, 1640–1940,” 30–31. 18. Mendoza Martínez, Inundaciones en Matamoros, 11–18; Zárate Ruiz, Matamoros, 87. 19. González Gaucín, “Nuevo Laredo y Sus Inundaciones,” 151. 20. San Antonio Express, “18,000 Huddled in Three Streets in Piedras Negras”; Brownsville Herald, “River Leaves Great Damage near Laredo,”; San Antonio Light, “Biggest Flood Sweeping on Valley.” 21. Iglesias, “Inundaciones en Nuevo Laredo, Villa Acuña y Piedras Negras, Coah.,” 373–374; González Gaucín “Nuevo Laredo y Sus Inundaciones,” 154. 22. Brownsville Herald, “Giant Crest Smashes Laredo; Many Dead in Piedras Negras.” 23. Hernandez Acosta, Nacimiento y Fracaso del Algodón—Matamoros (1938–1965), 70. 24. González Ramos, Cartografía Histórica Matamoros, 46. 25. Herrera Pérez, Monografía de Reynosa, 109–111. 26. Laredo Times, “Mexico Prepares for Tourist Stampede,” 1. 27. Valley Morning Star, “Where to Go for Entertainment,” 8. 28. Brownsville Herald, “Reynosa Popular with Tourists Visiting Valley”. 29. Corpus Christi Caller-Times, “Mexico via McAllen and Reynosa,” 12B. 30. González Ramos, Cartografía Histórica Matamoros, 41. 31. Ibid., 39; Herrera, El Fuerte Casamata. 32. González Ramos, Cartografía Histórica Matamoros, 43. 33. Ibid., 41, 43, 45; Alarcón Cantú, Estructura Urbana en Ciudades Fronterizas, 99–101. 34. Arreola and Curtis, The Mexican Border Cities, fig. 2.3; Alarcón Cantú, Estructura Urbana en Ciudades Fronterizas, 97–99. 35. Lott, The Story of Reynosa. 36. López Olivares, Reynosa en los 50s, 25–31. 37. Herrera Pérez, Monografía de Reynosa, 109. 38. López Olivares, Reynosa en los 50s, 38–40.

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39. Alarcón Cantú, Arquitectura Histórica en un Espacio de Encuentro, 31, and “Nuevo Laredo Urbano.” 40. Laroche, Plano de los Dos Laredos; International Boundary Commission United States and Mexico, Proceedings. 41. Paz y Echagarray, Plano de Nuevo Laredo. 42. Muñoz Puente, Photographs and Historical Maps. 43. Garza González, Reconstrucción de la Historia del Antiguo Nuevo Laredo, 40. 44. Laredo Improvement Company, Laredo, Texas. New Laredo, Mexico. 45. Devine, “Laredo Electric Railway Company.” 46. Arreola and Curtis, The Mexican Border Cities, 139–143. 47. Laroche, Plano de los Dos Laredos; Garza González, Historia de Nuevo Laredo, 89; Alarcón Cantú, Arquitectura Histórica en un Espacio de Encuentro, 41–43. 48. Garza González, Nuevo Laredo en el Siglo XX, 9–16. 49. Cook, Photo Collection, 1911; Garza González, Reconstrucción de la Historia del Antiguo Nuevo Laredo, 57. 50. Muñoz Puente, Photographs and Historical Maps. 51. Calderon, Mexican Coal Mining Labor in Texas and Coahuila, 1880–1930, 42–47; David M. Pletcher, Rails, Mines, and Progress, 100–103. 52. McKellar, Life on a Mexican Ranche. 53. Herrera Pérez, El Lindero que Definió a la Nación, 238. 54. Canales Santos, Piedras Negras, 168. 55. Sanborn Map Company, Ciudad Porfirio Díaz.

C HAPTER 2 1. Rosenheim, Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard, 15. Some of this paragraph appears in Arreola and Burkhart, “Photographic Postcards and Visual Urban Landscape,” 885. 2. Brown, Making Culture Visible, 3. 3. Bajac, The Invention of Photography, 38–40; Baldwin, Looking at Photographs, 27–28; Newhall, The History of Photography, 4. 4. Raeburn, A Staggering Revolution, 3. 5. Fisher and Fisher, Life in Mexico, 748. 6. Naggar and Ritchin, Mexico through Foreign Eyes, 44; Oles, South of the Border; Delpar, The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican. 7. Sandweiss, Stewart, and Huseman, Eyewitness to War, 44. 8. Debroise, Mexican Suite, 22. 9. Baldwin, Looking at Photographs, 22. 10. Mraz, Looking for Mexico, 20. 11. Massé Zendejas, Simulacro y Elegancia en Tarjetas de Visita, and Cruces y Campa. 12. Mraz, Looking for Mexico, 27–28. 13. Newhall and Edkins, William H. Jackson, 11; Naggar and Ritchin, Mexico through Foreign Eyes, 297. 14. Debroise, Mexican Suite, 79. 15. Ibid., 81; Mraz, Looking for Mexico, 7. 16. Staff, The Picture Postcard and Its Origins, 62; Miller and Miller, Picture Postcards in the United States, 1893–1918; Smith, Postcard Companion, 6–7. 17. Burdick, Pioneer Post Cards, 98. 18. Staff, The Picture Postcard and Its Origins, 58.

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19. Michas, Real and Other Photos, 16. 20. Ibid., 6–10. 21. Ibid., 14. 22. Ibid., 14, 18. 23. Morgan and Brown, Prairie Fires and Paper Moons; Vaule, As We Were; Bogdan and Weseloh, Real Photo Postcard Guide; Sante, Folk Photography. 24. Bogdan and Weseloh, Real Photo Postcard Guide, 56–91. 25. Michas, Real and Other Photos, 91–102. 26. Ibid., 98, 108–118. 27. “México in 1910” (website); Espino Barros, Eugenio Espino Barros: Fotógrafo Moderno, 283–293. 28. Sarber, “W. H. Horne and the Mexican War Photo Company”; Vanderwood and Samponaro, Border Fury; Samponaro and Vanderwood, War Scare on the Rio Grande. 29. García’s Studio, Destruction of Nuevo Laredo Mexico, April 24, 1914. 30. Samponaro and Vanderwood, War Scare on the Rio Grande. 31. Ibid., 2–3. 32. Ibid., 11–13. 33. WPA Guide to Texas, 611; Braudaway, Del Rio, 97–110. 34. Del Rio News-Herald, “Gainesville Couple Buy H. Lippe Studio,” 6, and “Hold Rites for Herman Lippe Here Tuesday,” 1. 35. Del Rio News-Herald, “Flying Vacation to Hawaii Convention Starts Today for Mr. and Mrs. Robert Warren,” 3; Braudaway, Del Rio, 73, 80. 36. Del Rio News-Herald, “Warren Studio Dates from 1941,” 4, and “Warrens Share through Photography, 28. 37. Interview with Rosantina Calvetti, October 19, 2010, who still operates the business in Del Rio. The entire stock—hundreds of negatives—of the Lippe and Warren Studios survives, and Calvetti continues to print from the original negatives, selling images to local businesses and others who find the historical photographs useful for interior decoration and for business advertisement. 38. Chattanooga Times, “Walter Cline 59 Years Old Today; Ready to Take Snaps Any Time,” 11. 39. Chattanooga Times, “Walter Cline Kills Himself Accidentally,” and “Cline Will Erect New Photo Plant.” 40. Uribe Eguiluz, Una Aproximación a La Compañía México Fotográfico, 14–18. 41. Frost, “El México Pintoreseo de Brehme,” and Timeless Mexico. 42. Uribe Eguiluz, Una Aproximación a La Compañía México Fotográfico, 23, 28. 43. Ibid., 27. 44. Ibid., 43, 56. 45. Ibid., 80, 84. 46. Jakle, Postcards of the Night, 31; Werther and Mott, Linen Postcards, 15–18. 47. Samponaro and Vanderwood, War Scare on the Rio Grande, 97. 48. “A Brief Postcard Timeline” (website). 49. Bogdan and Weseloh, Real Photo Postcard Guide, 217–233; Rowe, Arizona Real Photo Postcards, 75–82. 50. Lynch, Image of the City; Conzen, “Analytical Approaches to the Urban Landscape”; Jakle, The Visual Elements of Landscape. 51. Girouard, Cities and People, 353–355. 52. Vaule, As We Were, 123–156; Jakle, The American Small Town, 67–95.

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C HAPTER 3 1. Koch, Bird’s Eye View of Eagle Pass. 2. Braudaway, Del Rio, 79. 3. López Olivares, Reynosa en los 50s, 80. 4. Whitehead Memorial Museum and Val Verde County Historical Commission, La Hacienda, 227. 5. San Antonio Light, “Bridge Bonanza.” 6. Bobbett & Edmonds, Matamoros, Captured by Taylor May 18, 1846. 7. Thompson and Jones, Civil War and Revolution on the Rio Grande Frontier, 8–15. 8. De Planque, Photo Album, 1866. 9. Allhands, Uriah Lott, 101–102. 10. Richardson, “Texas’ Historic Boardwalk Is Doomed.” 11. Allhands, Uriah Lott, 101. 12. Carroll, “A Preliminary Cartographic Reference to the Centro Historico of H. Matamoros, Tamaulipas,” 3. 13. Cuéllar, 54 Lugares de Importancia en Matamoros, 76. 14. González, “Maps and Sketches: Bagdad, Mexico with Rio Bravo del Norte, 1860s and 1870s.” 15. González Ramos, Cartografía Histórica Matamoros; Mena, Album de las Fiestas del Centenario de la H. Matamoros, Tamps., 1826–1926, 96. 16. “The Tramways of Mexico” (website). 17. Chatfield, The Twin Cities of the Border; International Boundary Commission United States and Mexico, Proceedings; Canseco Botello, Historia de Matamoros, 162; Gonzáles Ramos, Cartografía Histórica Matamoros, 39. 18. “The Tramways of Mexico” (website). 19. Bobier, “Images Related to the Battle of Matamoros, 1913.” 20. Canseco Botello, Historia de Matamoros, 163. 21. Shanks, Laredo Reflections, 38. 22. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Engraving of a Panoramic View of Nuevo Laredo in 1877. 23. Webb County Historical Foundation, “Celebration of Heritage Series Bridges and Floods #1.” 24. Pletcher, Rails, Mines, and Progress, 100; Reed, A History of Texas Railroads, 472–476. 25. Garza González, Reconstrucción de la Historia del Antiguo Nuevo Laredo, 29. 26. Mexican National Railroad, Tropical Tours to Toltec Towns in Mexico. 27. Webb County Historical Foundation, “Celebration of Heritage Series Bridges and Floods #1”; Thompson, Laredo, 259. 28. Thompson, Laredo, 217. 29. Electric Railway Journal, “News of Electric Railways,” 427. 30. Devine, “Laredo Electric Railway Company,” 3. 31. “The Tramways of Mexico” (website). 32. Wellge, Perspective Map of the City of Laredo, Texas; Lewis Publishing Company, A Twentieth Century History of the Southwest, Illustrated, 2:111–113. 33. “The Tramways of Mexico” (website); Electric Railway Journal, “News of Electric Railways,” 427. 34. Laredo Improvement Co., Laredo, Texas. New Laredo, Mexico. 35. Shanks, Laredo Reflections, 38–39. 36. Villareal Marroquín, Una Mirada del Pasado II, 101.

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37. Shanks, Laredo Reflections, 39–40; Thompson, Laredo, 265–266. 38. Berger, The Development of Mexico’s Tourism Industry, 4–7. 39. Comisión Nacional de Caminos, Los Caminos de México, The Roads of Mexico, 79; García, El Camino México–Nuevo Laredo. 40. Berger, The Development of Mexico’s Tourism Industry, 4–7. 41. Delpar, The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican, 57. 42. Power’s Guide to Mexico for the Motorist, 1936, 9; Franck and Lanks, Pan American Highway from the Rio Grande to the Canal Zone, 2. 43. Laredo Times, “592 Cars to Mexico on July 4,” 8. 44. Laredo Times, “Nations Meet on Bridge to Open Banner Day,” 1. 45. General Directory of the City of Laredo, 1900, 9. 46. Dunson, The Gateway. 47. Michael Scully and Virginia Scully, Motorists’ Guide to Mexico, 18; Jackson, Mexican Interlude, 5; Pellowe, The Royal Road to Mexico, 35; Power’s Guide to Mexico, 1938, 4–5. 48. Toor, Frances Toor’s Guide to Mexico, 42–43; American Automobile Association, Mexico by Motor [1949], 35. 49. Laredo Times, “New Bridge at Laredo Is Sought,” 1, and “Mexico Says New Bridge Coming,” 1. 50. Thompson, Laredo, 269–271. 51. Garza González, Reconstrucción de la Historia del Antiguo Nuevo Laredo, 29.

C HA PTER 4 1. “Ford Motor Company, S.A. de C.V. History” (website). 2. Yturria, The Patriarch, 227. 3. Del Rio News-Herald, “Good Neighbor Parade Plans Taking Shape,” 1, and “City Ready for Good Neighbor Days,” 1; Knopp, Medrano, Rodriguez, and the Brownsville Historical Association, Charro Days in Brownsville. 4. Sanborn Map Company, Ciudad Porfirio Díaz. 5. Arreola and Curtis, The Mexican Border Cities, 44–48. 6. West, “The Flat-Roofed Folk Dwelling in Rural Mexico.” 7. Flores Revuelta and Canales Santos, Piedras Negras, 24. 8. Herrera Pérez, El Lindero que Definió a la Nación, 238. 9. Eder, “The Icons of Power and Popular Art,” 64. 10. Sanborn Map Company, Ciudad Porfirio Díaz. 11. Laroche, Plano de los Dos Laredos; International Boundary Commission United States and Mexico, Proceedings; Garza González, Reconstrucción de la Historia del Antiguo Nuevo Laredo, 41. 12. Dunson, The Gateway. 13. Thompson, Laredo, 284. 14. Comisión de Planificación de Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Planificación de Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, 1938, 11–27.

C HA PTER 5 1. Sanborn Map Company, Ciudad Porfirio Díaz. 2. Salinas Domínguez, Los Monumentos Históricos de Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, 17. 3. Garza González, Reconstrucción de la Historia del Antiguo Nuevo Laredo, 40–43.

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4. Garza González, Nuevo Laredo en el Siglo XX, 9. 5. Dunson, The Gateway; Salinas Domínguez, Los Monumentos Históricos de Nuevo Laredo, 17. 6. Villareal Marroquín, Una Mirada del Pasado II, 118; Garza González, Historia de Nuevo Laredo, 90. 7. Antonio Ríos, Plano de la Ciudad de Reynosa en 1927. 8. Herrera Pérez, Monografía de Reynosa, 88. 9. Carrol Norquist, Jr., interview, March 11, 2004. 10. López Olivares, Reynosa de Mis Recuerdos, 83. 11. Florinda Vela de Costilla, interview, March 12, 2004. 12. Lott, The Story of Reynosa. 13. Arreola, “Mexican American Housescapes.” 14. José Luis, interview, March 13, 2004. 15. Arreola and Burkhart, “Photographic Postcards and Visual Urban Landscape.” 16. Palacios Sáenz and Herrera Pérez, Reynosa, Nuestra Ciudad. 17. Woods, The Yearbook of the Lower Rio Grande Valley and Northern Mexico, 1941; Raul H. Castillo Domínguez, interview, March 13, 2004. 18. Valley Evening Monitor, “Most Traditionally Mexican Community on Northern Border,” 22. 19. Blanco Fenochio and Dillingham, La Plaza Mexicana; Arreola, “Plaza Towns of South Texas.”

C HAPTER 6 1. Garza González, Nuevo Laredo en el Siglo XX, 9, and Historia de Nuevo Laredo, 31. 2. Quotation from Jackson, Mexican Interlude, 6. 3. A Tour of Mexico, the Land of the Aztecs. See also the brochure Mexican International Railroad and the Italy of North America, and a Gate’s Tours brochure from the same era called Mexico “The Egypt of the New World.” 4. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, México en Cifras (Atlas Estadístico), 1934, 74, 78. 5. Carroll, “A Preliminary Cartographic Reference to the Centro Historico of H. Matamoros, Tamaulipas,” 13–15; González Ramos, Cartografía Histórica Matamoros, 19; Cuéllar, 54 Lugares de Importancia en Matamoros, 50. 6. Cuéllar, 54 Lugares de Importancia en Matamoros, 50. 7. Chatfield, The Twin Cities of the Border, 33. 8. Arreola, “Across the Street Is Mexico,” 26. 9. Del Rio News-Herald, “Jesus Ramon Is ‘Good Neighbor,’” 6. This vignette is based chiefly on Arreola, “La Macarena, the Most Beautiful Place in the Best Town on the Border.” 10. Del Rio News-Herald, “La Macarena Invites You to Dine and Dance” [advertisement], 6, and “La Macarena Mecca of the Fine Gourmet” [advertisement], 4; Big Spring (Texas) Herald, “4 Bulls 4 Fights La Macarena Bull Ring” [advertisement], 6A. 11. Del Rio News-Herald, “La Macarena Opening Patio Saturday Night,” 6, and “Dine and Dance at La Macarena Café-Bar Enjoy Our Cool Open Patio” [advertisement], 4. 12. Del Rio News-Herald, “Mexican Rodeo at ‘La Macarena’ Bull Ring” [advertisement], 2, “Atomic Show La Macarena” [advertisement], 4, and “La Macarena Presents the Skating Devils” [advertisement], 4. 13. Weber, “Conchita Cintrón, ‘Goddess’ of the Bullring, Dies at 86,” A22. 14. “Amazing American Girl Bullfighter Miss Patricia McCormick” (website).

Notes to pages 121–156

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15. Del Rio News-Herald, “More than 7,000 Cross Bridge from Acuna Sunday,” 1. 16. Del Rio News-Herald, “Bull Fight Bette Ford La Macarena” [advertisement], 4. 17. “Bette Ford: The Bullfighter, the Actress, the Woman” (website).

CHA PTER 7 1. Stillwell, Border City, 18. 2. Villareal Marroquín, Una Mirada del Pasado I, 121. 3. West, “Border Towns: What to Do and Where to Do It,” 70. 4. Schantz, “All Night at the Owl”; St. John, “Selling the Border.” 5. Daniel D. Arreola Postcard Collection. 6. Michael Scully and Virginia Scully, Motorists’ Guide to Mexico, 17. 7. Dunson, The Gateway. 8. Del Rio News-Herald, “Hold Rites for Mrs. Crosby Here Saturday,” 1. 9. Del Rio News-Herald, “Mrs. Esther Crosby Dies,” 1. 10. West, “Border Towns,” 66. 11. Del Rio News-Herald, “Mrs. Crosby’s Café” [advertisement], 6. 12. Del Rio News-Herald, “Mrs. Crosby’s Café Dance Music by Native Artists” [advertisement], 3, and “Dine . . . Dance . . . Enjoy Life at Mrs. Crosby’s Café” [advertisement], 6. 13. Reyna, “Reynosa: The Early Years,” 5L. 14. Valley Evening Monitor, “Night Clubs ‘Across the River’ Offer Fine Food, Entertainment,” 3. 15. Woods, The Yearbook of the Lower Rio Grande Valley and Northern Mexico [advertisements]; Lopéz Olivares, Reynosa en los 50s, 44–50. 16. Valley Evening Monitor, “Night Clubs,” 3. 17. Arreola, “Across the Street Is Mexico.” 18. Arreola, “Curio Consumerism and Kitsch Culture in the Mexican-American Borderland.” 19. Herrera, El Fuerte Casamata, 182. 20. Paredes Manzano, La Casa Mata, 19–21. 21. Robledo Treviño, Matamoros Ilustrado, 33. 22. Carroll, “A Preliminary Cartographic Reference to the Centro Historico of H. Matamoros, Tamaulipas,” 17–18; Daniel D. Arreola Postcard Collection. 23. Tamaulipas, Municipios, Catálogo Nacional, 1:599; Cuéllar, 54 Lugares de Importancia en Matamoros, 18–20. 24. Daniel D. Arreola Postcard Collection. 25. Herrera Pérez, La Zona Libre, 272; “El Cronista de H. Matamoros” (website). 26. Hernandez Acosta, Nacimiento y Fracaso del Algodón—Matamoros (1938–1965), 78. 27. La Republica Mexicana, Coahuila: Reseña Geográfica y Estadística; Herrera Pérez, El Lindero que Definió a la Nación, 238. 28. “Beckman, Albert Felix” (website). 29. Miller, On the Border, 76–91; Wood, “Radio,” 225–227. 30. Fowler and Crawford, Border Radio, 7. 31. Ibid., 13, 24. 32. Ibid., 79–80. 33. Daniel D. Arreola Postcard Collection. 34. Jordan, Texas Graveyards: A Cultural Legacy, 70. 35. Herrera Pérez, Monografía de Reynosa, 101, 118.

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C HAPTER 8 1. A Twentieth Century History of the Southwest, Illustrated, 2:74. 2. Woodcock, To the City of the Dead, 20–21. 3. Arreola, “The Picture Postcard Housescape”; Chatfield, The Twin Cities of the Border, 32. 4. Avila Hernández et al., Atlas Cultural de Mexico: Gastronomía. 5. “El Cronista de H. Matamoros” (website). 6. Allhands, Uriah Lott, 100. 7. Chatfield, The Twin Cities of the Border, 31. 8. McKellar, Life on a Mexican Ranche, 28. 9. Chatfield, The Twin Cities of the Border, 32. 10. Arreola and Curtis, The Mexican Border Cities, 153–182. 11. McKellar, Life on a Mexican Ranche; La Republica Mexicana, Coahuila: Reseña Geográfica y Estadística. 12. Powell, The Mexican Petroleum Industry, 1938–1950, 77. 13. Chatfield, The Twin Cities of the Border, 32. 14. Mendoza Martinez, Historia del Teatro de la Reforma; Daniel D. Arreola Postcard Collection. 15. Carrillo García, Por Estas Calles, 12; Isassi Cantú, Recuento de Imagines, 138, 147; Raul H. Castillo Domínguez, interview, March 13, 2004. 16. Lopéz Olivares, Reynosa en los 50s, 57–59. 17. Chatfield, The Twin Cities of the Border, 35. 18. José Vasconcelos (1882–1959) was raised in Piedras Negras and recalled that most schools in that border town were inferior to those across the river in Eagle Pass, forcing his family to relocate to the Texas town in 1892 (referenced in Martínez, U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 103). 19. Klein, Baseball on the Border, 33–35. 20. Daniel D. Arreola Postcard Collection. 21. Beezley, Martin, and French, Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistence, xiv. 22. Mena, Album de las Fiestas del Centenario de la H. Matamoros, Tamps., 1826–1926. 23. Curtis, “Mexicali’s Chinatown”; Flores García, Nogales, 44–45. 24. Baldo Vela Jr., interview, March 10, 2004; Anabella Ramos, interview, March 11, 2004; Florinda Vela de Costilla, interview, March 12, 2004; Raul H. Castillo Domínguez, interview, March 13, 2004; Jorge de Alba Rodríguez, interview, March 12, 2004.

C HAPTER 9 1. Cosgrove and Fox, Photography and Flight, 12–25; Schein, “Representing Urban America.” 2. Scott, Street Photography, from Atget to Cartier-Bresson, 16–17. 3. Hoelscher, Picturing Indians, 10. 4. Jakle, The Tourist, 5. 5. MacCannell, The Tourist, 43–45. 6. Philips, The Postcard Century, 6–13. 7. Bogdan and Weseloh, Real Photo Postcard Guide, 121–130. 8. Jakle, Postcards of the Night, 14, 26. 9. Jackson, “The Stranger’s Path,” 14. 10. Arreola, “Border-City Idée-Fixe”; 11. Meinig, “Introduction,” 6.

Notes to pages 187–220

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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N EWS PAP ERS Big Spring Herald [Big Spring, Tex.] Brownsville Herald [Brownsville, Tex.] Caller-Times [Corpus Christi, Tex.] Chattanooga Times [Chattanooga, Tenn.] Del Rio News-Herald [Del Rio, Tex.] Laredo Times [Laredo, Tex.] New York Times [New York] San Antonio Express [San Antonio, Tex.] San Antonio Light [San Antonio, Tex.] Valley Evening Monitor [McAllen, Tex.] Valley Morning Star [McAllen, Tex.] Wichita Weekly Times [Wichita Falls, Tex.]

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IN TERVIEWS AND P ERSO NAL CO MM U N I CAT I O N Rosantina Calvetti, interview, October 19, 2010, Del Rio, Texas. Raul H. Castillo Domínguez, interview, March 13, 2004, Hidalgo, Texas. Jorge de Alba Rodríguez, interview, March 12, 2004, McAllen, Texas. José Luis, interview, March 13, 2004, McAllen, Texas. Carrol Norquist, Jr., interview, March 11, 2004, Edinburg, Texas. Anabella Ramos, interview, March 11, 2004, McAllen, Texas. Christopher L. Salter, personal communication, May 24, 2012. Baldo Vela, Jr., interview, March 10, 2004, McAllen, Texas. Florinda Vela de Costilla, interview, March 12, 2004, Hidalgo, Texas.

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INDEX

Pages numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Acuña, 9, 10; bar in, 166, 167; Benjamín Canales, Plaza in, 9, 37, 132, 133, 134, 135–136, 137, 218; bridge at, 37, 66, 67, 68, 69, 136, 151, 156, 217; bullfights in, 150, 151, 155–156; celebrations in, 98; changing names for, 17, 37, 151; church in, 134, 135–136; curio store in, 174, 175; female bullfighters at, 155–156, 157; flooding in, 20; founding, 16–17, 132; geographic site of, 38, 132; Hidalgo, Calle in, 9, 10, 37, 38, 39, 96, 97, 132; La Macarena in, 10, 37, 38, 150, 151–152, 153, 155; Mrs. Crosby’s in, 164, 165; population change in, 19, 23; Prohibition impact on growth, 18; Río Las Vacas in, 37, 38; XER radio station in, 182, 183 aduana. See customs house advertisement, 23, 57, 169, 177 agentes viajeros, 55, 136 artesanías. See curio store crafts attraction, 5–7, 10, 139, 218; market and arena as, 5; tourist, 216 automobiles: in border towns, 91, 97, 118;

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crowd bridge at Laredo–Nuevo Laredo, 89; crowd bridge at Reynosa, 68; crowd Plaza Hidalgo in Reynosa, 124, 125; early examples of in Piedras Negras, 104, 105; line street in Piedras Negras, 107; used in travel between Mexico and United States, 143, 176 bandstand. See kiosco bar, 5–6, 10–11, 121, 123–124, 127, 131, 144, 152, 159, 164, 165, 166, 168, 217; American in Matamoros, 160, 161; Cadillac in Nuevo Laredo, 160, 161; ladies, 106; La Macarena in Acuña, 153; Shamrock in Nuevo Laredo, 160, 161; Washington in Acuña, 166, 167 barrilero, 11, 192, 193, 219 Brownsville, Texas, 8, 18, 26, 51–52, 61, 70, 72, 73, 97–98, 180 Boardwalk to Mexico, 72, 73 border towns: anatomy of, 4–5, 9; automobiles in, 97; bullrings in, 10; bullfights in, 151; Chinese in, 210, 211; cultural linkages among, 217; in everyday life, 6; founding, 16; ice plants in, 36; images of,

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6; impact of Mexican Revolution on, 17; impact of Prohibition on, 18; as modern, 220; pejorative view of, 219–220; photographic postcards of, 56–63; plazas in, 5, 9, 218; as popular destinations, 3, 22–23, 23; postcard views of, 25, 215–216, 219; post World War II tourism in, 23; promotion of, 8, 80; as railroad gateways, 17; river flooding in, 20; schools in, 202, 203; as small towns, 187, 216; as urban centers, 187, 216; visited from Texas, 15, 23 bridges, 8; at Acuña, 37, 38, 66, 67, 68, 69; automobile, 109; garita at, 70; iron trestle, 67, 68, 69, 71, 83, 87, 109, 217; at Matamoros, 24, 25–26, 27, 61, 180; at Nuevo Laredo, 30–31, 31, 32, 80, 82, 83–84, 85, 86, 87–88, 89, 92, 93, 110; at Piedras Negras, 34, 35, 36, 67, 68, 71; as progressive symbol, 217; at Reynosa, 28, 29, 30, 121, 124, 68, 69; suspension, 68, 69, 121, 217; volume of crossing on, 124 buildings: American style, 100, 101, 196; architecture, 36, 100, 101, 187, 196; brick in Piedras Negras, 102, 103; as city hall, 54, 101, 105, 126, 127; as dwellings, 38, 60, 94, 95, 186, 188, 196, 197, 207; flat-roofed, 94, 101, 109, 196; as landmarks, 62; limestone 123; as municipal palace, 5, 126, 127, 132, 133; as opera house, 200; around plazas, 117, 126, 127, 132, 171; public 6, 10, 180; rejas on, 196, 197; schoolhouse, 202, 203; single story, 95, 97 bullfighting, 5, 150; matadoras, 155–156, 157; toreras/os, 152, 155. See also bullring bullring, 10, 32, 139, 143, 208, 218; at Acuña, 37, 54, 150, 153; at Matamoros, 24, 142; at Nuevo Laredo, 142; at Reynosa, 28 businesses, 6–8, 10–11, 159, 217–218; along a block, 5, 113–114, 115; in Nuevo Laredo, 9, 109–110, 113; in Piedras Negas, 8; in Reynosa, 9, 131 café. See restaurant Calderón de la Barca, Fanny: introduces daguerreotype to Mexico, 43 Calzada del Puente. See Reynosa

cantina. See bar Cárdenas, Lázaro, 18, 88 carnicería. See market carte de visite, 44, 70 carts, 94, 190, 192, 193. See also barrilero carretas. See carts Casamata, 24, 25, 178, 179 casino gambling: Mexican censure of, 18; at Monte Carlo in Reynosa, 168; in Piedras Negras, 183 cathedral. See church celebration, 6, 10–11, 91, 98, 117, 123–124, 155, 160, 188, 217; at Acuña, 154; at Ciudad Porfirio Díaz, 116; at Matamoros, 208, 209; at Reynosa, 125 cemetery, 10–11, 184; at Matamoros, 24, 25, 184, 185; at Reynosa, 28, 185 chanales, 80, 87 church, 5, 9, 32, 38, 98, 106, 117, 123–124, 132; at Acuña, 134, 135; at Matamoros, 21, 26, 27, 180, 218; parroquia, 101, 117; at Piedras Negras, 106, 107; at Reynosa, 125, 130, 131 cine, 121, 200; at Matamoros, 201; at Nuevo Laredo, 201 city hall. See presidencia municipal Ciudad Porfirio Díaz. See Piedras Negras clock tower: at Matamoros, 144, 145; at Nuevo Laredo, 120, 121 clubs, 38, 163; in Nuevo Laredo, 162; in Reynosa, 169 cobrador, 80 crossing, 4–5, 38, 217; by automobile, 8, 68, 176; by boat, 8, 67, 72, 73, 80, 87; by foot, 8, 89; by railroad, 8, 140 curio store, 5–6, 9–11, 52, 70, 98, 121, 123–124, 127, 159, 164, 171, 175–176, 217; at Acuña, 174; crafts 172, 173; at Matamoros, 63, 174; at Nuevo Laredo, 112; at Reynosa, 122, 125, 126, 170, 177; stamps, 171 customs house, 10–11, 26, 32, 84; architects in Piedras Negras, 180; in Matamoros, 180, 181; in Piedras Negras, 34, 100, 101, 180, 181 daguerreotype, 42–44 Del Rio, Texas, 17, 20, 37, 38, 53, 67, 69, 98,

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136, 151, 155–156, 164, 183, 217; Citizen’s Bridge at, 68 Díaz, Porfirio, 35, 44, 80, 101; decreed statues for Mexican heroes, 102; street named for, 98, 99 disasters: caused by river flooding, 20, 22, 92, 110; at Nuevo Laredo, 21, 82, 83

portfolio, 7; postcard, 2–3, 7–8, 41, 216, 218, 220; relationship to tourism and places, 3 immigration office, 70, 75, 79, 92, 110; in Matamoros, 74; in Nuevo Laredo, 86

Eagle Pass, Texas, 8, 16–17, 35–36, 67, 69, 105–106, 140, 183; bridge connecting to, 68, 71; panoramic view of, 34 Eastman, George, 43; Eastman Kodak, 47–48 eateries. See restaurants Edinburg, Texas, 211 Espino Barros, Eugenio, 49, postcard printing inventions, 48 estero, 16, 34, 188 Evans, Walker: postcard collector, 41 everyday life, 6–7, 41, 188, 219; domestic scenes in, 11; in early Mexican photography, 44; in Matamoros business, 63

kiosco, 117–118, 123, 128, 132, 136; at Acuña, 133, 137; at Nuevo Laredo, 119; at Reynosa, 129

family: in Matamoros homes, 206; networks in Texas, 211 fronterizo, 188 garita, 70, 87–88, 110; in Nuevo Laredo, 93; in Reynosa, 71, 86 gateway, 4–5, 7–8, 10, 38, 87, 91–92, 95, 109–110, 131, 143, 176, 216–217; to Mexico from Laredo, 90 geography: cultural, 2; historical, 6; imagination, 2, 215 Guerrero, Avenida. See Nuevo Laredo Hidalgo, Calle. See Acuña Hidalgo, Texas, 17, 26, 70, 121, 124; connected by bridge to Reynosa, 30; on map, 28 hinterland, 4, 8, 22, 35, 95 idée fixe, 220 image: accessible, 2; afterlife of, 215; of border towns, 6; circulation, 3; density, 9, 98, 128; as historical lens, 220; photographic, 1, 58; popular, 1, 7, 216;

254

Jackson, John Brinckerhoff, 3–4

labor: in Acuña, 190; domestic, 188, 219; industrial, 199; in Matamoros, 186, 189, 190, 193; in Nuevo Laredo, 190; in Reynosa, 193; specialized, 191–92 landmarks, 6–7, 10–11, 36, 60, 109–110, 131, 144, 159, 188, 217–218; in Piedras Negras, 62 landscape, 1–3, 5–8, 41, 216–221; anatomy, 9; coded, 215; commercial, 218; cultural, 3; personality of, 60; plaza, 117; as text, 2; vernacular, 188, 219–220; as view, 2 Laredo, Texas, 8, 16, 18, 20, 30, 32, 80, 83–84, 87–88, 91–92, 109–110, 114, 140, 187; bridge connecting to Nuevo Laredo, 82, 89, 93; as gateway to Mexico, 90; on map, 14, 31 ley seca. See Volstead Act livelihood. See labor Macarena, La: in Acuña, 10, 38, 151–152, 155–156; bar and café, 153; bullring, 153; location on map of, Acuña, 37; on postcard map, 150 map: of Acuña, 37; of Matamoros, 24; of Nuevo Laredo, 31; of Piedras Negras, 34; of Reynosa, 28; of Río Bravo border towns, 14 market, 5, 10, 29, 31–32, 36, 60, 84, 110, 139, 143, 147–148, 218–219; on Avenida Guerrero in Nuevo Laredo, 111; carnicería in, 140, 146, 147; location in Matamoros, 24; location in Nuevo Laredo, 31; views of in Matamoros, 145, 146, 149; wool in Ciudad Profirio Díaz, 198, 198–199

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massification, 2; of photographic image, 42, 220 Matamoros, 8; aerial view, 26, 27; agricultural expansion around, 22; barrileros in, 192, 193; bars in, 19, 160, 161, 166, 167; bridges at, 24, 25–26, 61, 180, 217; bullring in, 24, 25, 80, 81, 142, 143, 208; Casamata in, 24, 25, 178, 179; cathedral in, 21, 26, 27; celebration in, 208, 209; cemetery in, 24, 25, 184, 185; charro days in, 98; Colonia Jardín in, 26, 196, 197; curio store in, 174, 175–176; customs house in, 27, 26, 180, 181; electric transport system in, 79; families in, 63, 206, 207; founding, 16; fruit stand in, 63; geographic site of, 25; hurricanes in, 20, 21; immigration office at, 74, 75; map of, 24; mercado in, 10, 76, 144, 145, 146, 147–148, 149, 203, 218; mule car and streetcar in, 24, 74, 75–76, 77, 78, 79–80, 81, 143, 217; opera house in, 200, 201; parián, 143, 147; Plaza Hidalgo in, 24, 26, 27, 52, 76, 97, 118, 119, 143, 180, 192, 208; population change in, 19, 22; Prohibition impact on growth, 18; Runyon, Robert in, 18, 49, 52–53; Santa Cruz portage, 70–72, 75, 79; Santa Cruz station, 25, 74, 75, 77, 78, 143; school in, 202, 203; Sexta, Calle in, 24, 25, 61, 96, 97, 207, 208; street scene in, 57, 60, 61, 94, 95; tiendas in, 194, 195; tourism in, 23; walled city of, 16, 24, 26, 178, 179; water crossing at, 72, 73, 217 mercado. See market Mexican Revolution, 17, 52, 84, 140 México Fotográfico, La Compañía, 49, 51, 55–56, 57, 136, 175 monument, 102, 123, 127–128, 131, 135–136; to Benito Juárez in Reynosa, 122, 129, 130; to Manuel Acuña, 134; to Miguel Hidalgo in Piedras Negras, 103; to Santiago Mauro Belden in Nuevo Laredo, 119 mule car. See Matamoros nopalero, 190, 191 Nuevo Laredo, 8–9, 187; automobile tourism at, 88; Belisario Domínguez, Mercado in, 139, 141; bridges at, 30–32, 31, 80,

82, 83, 86, 87, 91–92, 93, 109–110; bullring in, 32; burned during Mexican Revolution, 17, 18, 84, 109, 139; Cadillac Bar in, 160, 161; cíne in, 200, 201; clock tower on plaza, 120, 121; curio crafts in, 172, 173; curio stores in, 176; customs house in, 84; after flood, 21; flooding in, 20, 21, 87, 92; founding, 16; geographic site of, 30, 31; Guerrero, Avenida in, 9, 20, 30–32, 83–84, 88, 92, 109–110, 114, 118, 121, 139, 160, 172, 218; Maclovio Herrera, Mercado in, 31, 32, 109–110, 111, 113, 140, 141, 218; as main street in Nuevo Laredo, 108, 111, 112, 115; on map of Nuevo Laredo, 31; mule car and streetcar in, 31, 84, 118, 119; Pan American Highway at, 88, 89, 110; parián in, 31–32, 83, 138, 139; park in, 203, 205; plazas in, 9, 31, 31–32, 87, 109–110, 114, 118, 119, 120, 139, 200; population change in, 19, 22; Puente de Los Arcos, 86, 87, 92, 109–110, 217; railroad at, 17, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 80, 140, 143; river crossing at, 80; Santo Niño, Templo in, 32, 87, 118; sitio at Plaza Juárez, 118, 120; street widening at, 110; train station in, 31, 32, 33, 142; Washington Birthday celebration in, 91 palimpsest, 220 Pan American Highway. See Nuevo Laredo panteón. See cemetery parián. See Matamoros; Nuevo Laredo parroquia. See church paseo. See plaza Pemex. See Reynosa photographer, 6, 18, 42, 49, 55–56, 58; Abrego, 49, 58, 59; border postcard, 48–55, 49; Brehme, Hugo, 55; Briquet, Alfred, 44, 55; Cline, Walter M., 49, 51, 53–55, 54; Cruces, Antíoco and Luis Campa, 44; Daguerre, Louis Jacque Mandé, 42–43; de Planque, Louis, 70; Disdéri, André Adolph, 44; Espino Barros, Eugenio, 48, 49; Esquivel, 49, 50, 51; Evans, Walker, 41; García, J. G., 18, 49, 50, 51; García L., 49, 50, 51; Jacobs, 49, 51; Jackson, William Henry, 44, 55; Lippe,

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Herman, 49, 53; López, M. M., 49, 123; Nadir, 215; postcard, 47; Runyon, Robert, 18, 49, 51–53, 59, 61; Serrano, 49, 51, 91; Villareal, Juan C., 49, 51, 206, 207; Waite, C. B., 55; Warren, Robert L., 49, 54, 136 photography, 2, 6; aerial, 215; calotype, 42–43; camera, portable handheld, 43, 47–48, 57, 63; carte de visite, 44, 70; credibility in, 2, 58; daguerreotype, 42–44; Eastman Kodak, 47; mass reproduction in, 42; in Mexico, 43–44; popular, 42–43, 215; postcard, 6, 42, 47–48; relationship to tourism, 2; rolled film, 42–43, 47; sheet film, 48; wet plate process, 42 Piedras Negras, 8, 9; bar in, 166, 167; bridges at, 34, 36, 67, 68, 69, 71; Chinese in, 210, 211; church in, 106, 107; cíne in, 200; city hall in, 54, 101, 105, 180; curio store in, 170, 171; customs house in, 34, 180, 181; flooding in, 20; founding, 16; geographic site of, 34, 35; mercado in, 34, 36, 62, 105, 180; Mexicans flee from, 17; monuments in, 102, 103; named Ciudad Porfirio Díaz, 16-17, 32, 35, 98, 101, 180; plazas in, 34, 35–36, 98–101, 116, 117; population change in, 19, 23; Prohibition impact on growth, 18; radio broadcast from, 182, 183; railroad in, 17, 32, 34, 35, 140, 180, 198, 199; school in, 202, 203; steel mill in, 35–36; Texas and Coahuila Ferry Company at, 67; wool industry in, 198, 199; Zaragoza, Calle in, 8–9, 36, 60, 62, 98, 100, 101–02, 103, 104, 105–06, 107, 117, 218 Pink Zone (Zona Rosa). See Reynosa pipero. See barrilero place, 1–3, 6–7, 56; American, 3; authenticity of, 220; border, 1; engagement with, 1; enshrined, 216; exotic, 3; icons of, 215; making of, 2, 8; memory of, 216, 220; Mexican, 6; narration of, 2; pictures of, 2; popularity of, 216, 220; postcards as memento of, 216; postcards shape, 2; representation of, 2, 6–7, 58; in retrospect, 215; serial view of, 220; shaped by popular culture, 220; signified, 220; sites

256

in, 4; space into, 216; story of, 220; of the view, 220 plaza, 5, 7–9, 217–218; mayor, 9, 121; paseo in, 117–118, 124, 131–132; as pedestrian space, 5, 118, 119, 132; in postcard views, 5, 180; principal, 9, 121, 132; puestos in, 118, 121, 131, 144; residences around, 118, 121, 135, 171; resolana in, 118; sitio on, 118, 120. See also Acuña; Matamoros; Nuevo Laredo; Piedras Negras; Reynosa plaza de toros. See bullring postcard: album, 56, 57, 216; attribution for, 58; buildings and landmarks in, 60; categories of photographic, 219; collections, 41, 56, 58; as commercial images, 41; companies, 48, 49, 51–52; consumer of, 3; dating, 59; divided back, 47; fix, 9, 218; as form of visual culture, 6; golden era for border towns, 25; gruss aus, 45; history of, 45–47; as icon, 8, 215; ink stamps on, 171; mailed, 4, 174, 175, 216; map, 150; and memory, 4; messages on, 4, 83, 95, 216; multiple views of Casamata in Matamoros, 179; multiple views of cemetery in Matamoros, 184; multiple views of customs house in Matamoros, 180; multiple views of plaza in Reynosa, 218; numbering, 58–59, 61; people posed in, 60, 63; photographers, 18, 49, 58; photographic, 2–3, 47, 53, 54, 55–56, 58–59, 140, 219; picture, 1–2, 45, 216, 221; popularity, 1, 175; print, 58–59, 116, 138, 145, 186, 193, 198; printing, 48, 52–53, 55; private mailing, 45, 46, 47; racks for, 148, 149, 175, 216; representations of flooding in, 22; sales, 6, 149, 175, 216; specialized economies shown in, 199; street scenes in, 60, 61; tarjetas postales, 127; tinted photographic, 56, 57, 86, 87, 130, 131; townscape in, 59; views, 1, 4, 7, 60, 215–16, 219 presidencia municipal, 101, 105, 117, 123, 127, 132, 136, 218; in Acuña, 133; in Piedras Negras, 54; in Reynosa, 126 Prohibition, 9, 11, 17, 22, 28–29, 69, 75, 106, 121, 124, 159–160, 167–168, 172; at Acuña,

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66; in Matamoros, 19, 161; in Nuevo Laredo, 108, 109; repeal of, 18; in Reynosa, 168. See also Volstead Act Puente de Los Arcos. See Nuevo Laredo puesto, 118, 121, 131, 144. See also plaza; vendor radio, 11, 183; broadcasts from border towns, 182, 183 railroad: at Matamoros, 24, 25; at Nuevo Laredo, 17, 30, 31, 32, 33, 80; at Piedras Negras, 17, 32, 34, 35–36, 101, 140, 198, 199; at Reynosa, 26, 28; workers introduce baseball, 203 rejas. See buildings reloj público, el. See clock tower rephotography, 2, 58, 128, 220 resolana. See plaza restaurant, 5, 10–11, 38, 121, 124, 131, 152, 155, 159, 164, 168, 171, 204, 211, 217; in Acuña, 153, 154, 165; in Matamoros, 166, 205; in Nuevo Laredo, 161; in Reynosa, 169 Reynosa, 9–10; agricultural expansion around, 22; Anzalduas Canal in, 22, 28, 29; barrilero in, 192, 193; bird’s-eye view of, 29; bridge at, 28, 30, 68, 69, 124; bullring in, 28; Calzada del Puente in, 28, 168, 171, 176; cemetery in, 28, 29, 184, 185; church in, 123–124, 131; cíne in, 200; clubs in, 168, 169; curio crafts in, 172, 173; curio stores in, 70, 71, 122, 123, 170, 171, 176, 177; flooding in, 20; founding, 16; garita in, 70, 71; geographic site of, 26, 121; Hotel Tivoli in, 122, 123; loma in, 121, 124, 184; map of, 28; market in, 29; Mexican Revolution in, 17; municipal palace in, 122, 123; Pemex in, 28, 199; Plaza Hidalgo in, 28, 121, 122, 123–124, 125, 126, 127–128, 129, 130, 131, 171, 218; population change in, 19, 22; Prohibition impact on growth, 18; Puente Colgante in, 28, 30, 68, 69, 71; sitio, 130, 131; string street in, 28, 29, 98, 99, 168; tourism in, 23, 28; zona rosa in, 28, 121, 131 Río Bravo del Norte, 15, 19 Runyon, Robert, 18, 49, 52–53

Santa Cruz. See Matamoros school, 11, 32, 135, 188, 202, 203 serial view, 2, 9, 98, 128, 220–221 shop. See tienda sight and site, 6, 220 sign, 3, 60, 88, 97–98, 102, 106, 110, 113–114, 123, 143, 151, 160, 218 sitio, 118, 120, 130, 131. See also Nuevo Laredo; Reynosa spine. See street station: bus, 10; at Nuevo Laredo, 142; of the path, 4–7, 9–10; at Piedras Negras, 142; radio, 11; Santa Cruz at Matamoros, 25, 75–76; train, 10, 101, 140, 143, 180 statue. See monument stranger’s path, 3–4, 219; businesses on, 6; as metaphor, 3; stations on, 4–6 street, 7–8; as calle principal, 95, 98, 109, 114, 131; commercial, 102, 109; main, 4–5, 8–9, 38, 39, 95, 109, 217–218; of Mexico exhibit, 47; paved, 106, 107, 110, 111, 112, 113, 136, 196; residential, 95, 98, 109; scenes, 60, 94; as spine, 5, 9; statues in, 102, 103; streetscape, 5, 97, 126, 218; string, 5; string at Reynosa, 28, 29, 95, 98, 99, 121; unpaved, 38, 60, 61, 94, 100, 101, 104, 105, 109; views of, 60, 61 streetcar: in Matamoros, 24, 25, 78, 79–80, 81; in Nuevo Laredo, 31, 84, 108, 109, 118, 119 tarjeta de visita. See carte de visite taxi stand. See sitio theater. See cine tienda, 194, 195 tourism: by automobile, 88; golden age of, 92, 113; post–World War II, 23; promotion at Laredo, 91; by train, 140 tourist, 2, 160; attraction, 5; behavior, 2; on bridge, 88; gaze, 2, 215; path, 3–6, 8, 10, 98, 179, 188, 217–219; route, 4; shoppers, 175–176, 177; strip, 109; visas issued at Nuevo Laredo, 22; visitor experience, 3–4 transport: forms of, 8, 217; varieties at Matamoros, 217

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tranvía. See Matamoros, mule car and streetcar vega, 30, 34, 35, 38, 87, 191 vendor, 6; as Mexican tipos, 44; in plazas, 118, 119; stalls, 144, 146, 147–148, 149; water cart, 11, 219. See also barrileros viewscape, 7–9, 25, 60, 217 vignette, 7–10 Villa Acuña. See Acuña

258

visual: arts, 2; culture, 1–2, 6–7, 220; culture and place, 7; display, 219; exploration of place, 7; icon, 8; itinerary, 216; narrative, 1; representation, 7; representation of early Matamoros, 70 Volstead Act, 18; called ley seca in Mexico, 20. See also Prohibition Zaragoza, Calle. See Piedras Negras zona rosa. See Reynosa

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