In 1793 the king of Spain gave the Concepcion de Carricitos grant, containing about 75,000 acres, to Eugenio and Bartolo Fernandez, Spanish noblemen and distinguished soldiers, in consideration of their service to Spain and their promise to colonize the property. Part of that grant is now known as the Landrum Plantation, El Rancho Cipres, or the Highland Community.

The Fernandez brothers established their colony along the Rio Grande. The colony grew very slowly but steadily, first under the Spanish king and then under the Republic of Mexico, until 1846 when General Zachary Taylor's army came to the border and invaded Mexico at the beginning of the Mexican War.

After the war (1848) many Americans who had served in the military returned to settle on the border. Among them was Colonel Stephen Powers, who left his home in New England to live in Brownsville. At that time he was married to the daughter of a Colonel Butler. She had two daughters, Mrs. Angus Brown and Mrs. Combs. Colonel Powers was an able attorney.

The Landrum Plantation had its beginnings when Powers was employed by descendants of the Fernandez brothers to protect their property interests and secure the confirmation of their rights and title to the lands in the Concepcion de Carricitos grant. At this time the land was worth about 10 cents an acre. Judge Powers secured confirmation of their title by the Supreme Court of Texas and the state legislature. For his services he received about one-half of the entire grant.

The heirs took their portions in strips running from the river back to the baseline about one and-a-half or two miles from the river. Judge Powers took as his portion land back of the baseline which was considered of small

value. He bought out several heirs and acquired quite a body of land on the Rio Grande, known as El Rancho Cipres. Here the James L. Landrum family made their home.

William Landrum, James' father, was born in Georgia but moved to Stockton, California. While there, he became inspired with the idea that a more durable fiber than silk or cotton was needed. He took a freighter and crew around the Cape of Good Hope to Africa, where he bought some Angora goats, which he brought back to California. Finding his wife ill with tuberculosis, he decided to move to the high, dry climate of Uvalde, Texas, a location favorable for an Angora goat ranch. His family included four sons and two daughters.

In Uvalde the Landrum family chanced to become acquainted with the Stephen Powers family. After his first wife's death, Powers had married Willa Marion and had two daughters, Annette (Mrs. Ben Hicks) and Frances. Annette was much older than Frances. When Frances was born, her mother died, and she was reared by Annette, who by then was Mrs. Hicks. (For many years all of Frances' children thought Mrs. Hicks was their grandmother.)

The meeting of the two families took place when a friend invited seventeen-year-old Frances Powers to go with her on a visit to Uvalde, by stage, for a weekend. They stayed at the old hotel where the Powers family always stayed. That weekend there was a big dance at the hotel, and it was there that Frances met William Landrum's youngest son, James.

During the following year James Landrum made arrangements to visit Frances in Brownsville. Mr. Landrum, through friends, had to secure letters of character and recommendation to take with him on the visit so that he could be introduced in the traditional formal manner. A year later, in 1893, they were married in Brownsville. To celebrate the connection of the two families, Judge Powers, who was strong politically, had William Landrum make a mohair coat for President Taft.

When Mrs. Landrum became very ill in her early forties, Landrum took the whole family in a private railroad car to San Antonio to consult a specialist. They spent at least a month there. The youngest daughter, Frances, was a tiny baby when her mother died of kidney trouble at the age of 43. The two older girls, Mattie and Pauline, were sent to a convent school in Brownsville. Little Frances remained at home and was cared for by a nursemaid and her father and, later, by a stepmother. James L. Landrum, Jr., son of J. L. Landrum and Mary Talbot Landrum, lives in San Benito with his wife Lois and children.

Landrum contributed much to progress with his plantation. When he died in 1936 at the age of 73, he left his estate to his three daughters. (Three other sons had died in infancy. One is buried in the Powers family plot in the old Brownsville cemetery, and the other two in the little family cemetery on the ranch.) Mrs. Frances Landrum Talbot inherited the home place with something like 2000 acres of land.

In all, the Powers Estate had acquired something like 60,000 acres of land, but Landrum had disposed of some of it before his death. Now about 1000 acres of the original plantation is leased out for farming. The Highlands acreage, where the first school was located, is also in cultivation. A large hackberry grove nearby is called Landrum Park. The house has been refurbished and restored in the interior.

This writer feels very personally fortunate that through her research for the history of the Landrum Plantation she had the opportunity to visit in the home of each of the Landrum daughters, Mrs. Mattie Wagner and Mrs. Pauline Jasper in Brownsville and Mrs. Frances Talbot at the plantation.

Each depicted, by her personality and her home, the high cultural values of the family and the interesting parents she had. In each house the distinctive antique heirlooms reflected the splendor of the family background and the accomplishments of the ancestors. It was indeed a pleasure visiting and talking with each of these heirs.

For the first year of their marriage (through the birth and death of their first son) the Landrums lived in Brownsville with the Benjamin Hicks family. In 1894 they moved near the present location of the Landrum home on the Old Military Highway south of San Benito. Frances Powers Landrum had inherited that part of the Powers estate, but the title needed to be cleared. Meanwhile they lived in a seven-room adobe jacal. They immediately started making plans for building the fine two-story brick home, which still stands. Landrum built a kiln on the plantation and made the bricks for the house. All the lumber used inside and out was cypress (cipres) shipped in by boat from New Orleans and landed at the plantation river dock just behind where the house now stands. The home was completed in 1902.

In the meantime, in order to be able to have income off the land, he planted crops and devised a way of getting the land irrigated. He built cypresswood flumes and a crosswise canvas device with a canvas sail. With a little wind and some priming, the water flowed into the small ditches he had dug. Thus his early crops of cotton, vegetables and hay were grown. Later he also raised grain.

From the beginning, plantation life was interesting. Game of all kinds was plentiful. The main diversion in social life was horseback riding. Trips to Brownsville and Laredo were made by stagecoach at first and later by train. Life was simple but pleasant on the ranch.

In 1904 it was Colonel Sam Robertson's good fortune to be a guest at the Landrum Plantation home. He stated, "This was the most delightful, hospitable home it was my privilege to enter." The Landrums had a dozen servants, well fed, happy and contented, and all loved their dear patron. He was a real father, protective to all his people. For 40 years he never had a lock on his home or storehouse.

Early in his career Landrum identified himself with Robertson and Oliver Hicks in canal and railroad building. In 1910 and 1911, in order to encourage land sales, Robertson built the San Benito and Rio Grande Valley Railroad from Sugarland through Rio Hondo, San Benito, Highlands, La Paloma, Carricitos, Los Indios and Rangerville to Santa Maria, and then on from Madero through Mission to Monte Cristo. This raiload was called the "Spiderweb" and the "Back Door Railroad." It operated a gasoline motor car for passengers and express and steam locomotives for freight. The little locomotive was known as the "Galloping Goose." This railroad was later absorbed by the Missouri Pacific.

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