Ruidosa, Texas

Ruidosa is a place in Presidio County in the U.S. state of Texas.

Geography

Ruidosa is located in western Texas along the Rio Grande and Farm Road 170 about eighty kilometers southwest of Marfa in the western part of the Presidio counties. The village lies on the Rio Grande 852 meters above sea level.

History

A first occupation of the site took place in 1824, when the Mexican government established the military post Vado Piedra. In this Fort a regiment was stationed, which consisted of convicted criminals. The regiment had the task of protecting livestock in the northern part of the province of Chihuahua against raids of the Comanches. After the " Regiment of the Damned ", as it was called, had been wiped out in the battles against the Comanches, the military post was abandoned.

First settlement beginnings there were at this location until 1872 again when William Russell founded a farm, his farm land along the Rio Grande sided with irrigation ditches and built a flour mill. In May 1876 Ruidosa was included as the sixth place in the local directory of the Presidio counties. During an attack the Mescalero Apaches on the farm in 1879 four workers were killed, others were wounded. Despite the threat of Indian raids to more farmers in the area around Ruidosa settled.

1902 a school was established, which had 287 students in 1911, in the district Ruidosa lived at that time 1,722 people. The place itself Ruidosa in 1914 about 100 inhabitants, several shops and a post office, he was the local shopping center of the farms along the Rio Grande. In 1914 the farmers began on the Rio Grande to adjust their production to cotton, which led to increased income and a modest growth of the place which in 1929 had about 300 inhabitants. The 1923 built by the municipality cotton processing plant was abandoned in 1936. With the beginning of the 1940s migration of population from Ruidosa the importance of the place sank as local shopping center, 1954, the post office was closed and the early 1960s, the last business of the place. The population of Ruidosa 1968 was dropped to 43, since the stagnant population by 40

Most houses in the area that had been built of adobe, are in ruins today. The spacious church building is quite dilapidated, has no windows and doors more but exterior walls and roof are still intact.