Welcome to the town of Rio Rico. The river is the boundary between two countries. Talk about illegals on this side. Well, I was illegal on that side too. A small Mexican border town with a rich history. There was a cascade of events that these folks said: ‘Look at what the gringos did to us. They took away our river.’ Rio Rico was actually at one time kind of like a little Las Vegas. The name that pops up in this local lore is Al Capone. Except it turns out Rio Rico wasn’t always part of Mexico. And there’s consequences of trying to control nature. I mean unforeseen consequences. A shocking discovery in 1967 revealed that the town was originally part of the United States. Hundreds of Mexicans discovered they were actually American. All the major newspapers, they all carried a story about ‘the lost Americans’ . It was a big deal because it’s an unusual story. So how did this happen?
Locals call the region around the US-Mexico border La Frontera. It can be a dangerous place with security forces on the lookout for cartels who traffic drugs and people to the US, while smuggling guns and money back to Mexico. Rio Rico is a small Mexican town. There aren’t many people here now, and it’s hard to imagine that this place was actually once part of the US. Borders often change – violently through war, sometimes peacefully when land is traded or purchased. And sometimes, as in the case of the US-Mexico border, a small, now long-forgotten company can rewrite the entire history of a nation’s border. The Rio Grande has formed the border between the United States of America and Mexico since 1848. In the early 1900s the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company had a pumping station on the US side that took water from the river and delivered it to local farmers. The company started to worry that the river would change course, though. So in 1906 it cut a new channel that isolated 419 acres south of the river. The old loop of river dried up and this area became known as the Horcon Tract with Rio Rico in the middle. Essentially, south of the river is Mexico. So 418 acres became territory of Mexico. One of the treaties they violated was the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that said the Rio Grande is the boundary between the two countries. The American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company was fined and ordered to pay damages to those living on the Horcon Tract. But residents pretty quickly adapted to becoming part of Mexico.
In 1920, Prohibition was introduced across the United States. So if you’re in South Texas and want to have a beer, want to have a margarita, you can’t have any on this side. There was these communities across the river. You could paddle across, you could swim across, you could walk across sometimes and indulge. Rio Rico was glad to supply the American population with as much beer and tequila and whatever they wanted. 1928, they started the construction of a bridge to go across to Rio Rico. There was a lot of advertising in the local papers about the grand opening and what was happening over there. They had casinos, they had gambling, they had drinking, the Tivoli nightclub. It had a dance floor that was the size of a basketball court. They had cockfighting and they had bordellos. So prohibition caused the economy of Rio Rico to just boom. Newspaper headlines in 1929 talk about ‘Eastern Capitalists’ purchase Rio Rico to be a high class resort. 250 of the fastest dogs in the country arrive for the inaugural race of Rio Rico Kennel Club. And the name that pops up in this local lore is Al Capone. Now, there is no official record that he was down here, but it’s assumed that his captains and his sergeants and his minions were doing the stuff and they were pumping in money to Rio Rico to develop Rio Rico into a resort area. The good times in Rio Rico dried up after 1933, when Prohibition was repealed. Mike England grew up on the US side of the river. For him, the border was never something that separated people. Growing up there on the river like I did was was a kid’s paradise. I got to fish, hunt every day, but there were some kids from across the river that would actually come over and I got to know them all and we’d fish on our side. And of course, they were invited over to our house just like they were family, they’d eat with us and whatnot. I’d also swim the river and go back south. And I got to know their family just like they got to know mine. It’s kind of strange. They talk about illegals on this side. Well, I guess I was illegal on that side, too. But nobody cared. After a while, the inhabitants of Rio Rico had largely forgotten that they were once citizens of the US. Until 1967, when a geography professor called James Hill rediscovered what had happened. He did extensive research on this area and created some well-documented maps that designated the property owners in all these 419 acres where the cut of the river was. This was especially interesting to attorney Laurier McDonald, who was representing a client, called him Homero Cantu, who was in the process of being deported from the US. McDonald was able to prove that because his client was born in Rio Rico, that made him a US citizen.
The US Court of Appeals decides, yes indeed, Mr Cantu was born in US territory. That’s the 14th Amendment to the Constitution: If you’re born within territory of the United States, you are a citizen. So he was a citizen having been born in Rio Rico. Whoop-dee-doo. That started a pandemonium for Rio Rico. Another resurgence in growth in Rio Rico. Everyone said: ‘I was born in Rio Rico, I was born in Rio Rico.’ These folks came from all over Mexico. They came from Europe. They came from China, saying: ‘I was born in Rio Rico.’ As others scrambled to get US citizenship by claiming they were born in Rio Rico, lawyers were tasked with assessing their claims. We had clients who had, depending upon which bedroom the baby was delivered in because the house itself sat across the international boundary line. You have to remember no one who lived there really paid any attention to that boundary. And so lots were subdivided. And there was, you know, houses were built. And yeah, it was very, very strange. There was there was more than one family whose house was split. It depends on what bedroom you were born in. In the end, the US officially ceded the Horcon Tract to Mexico and accepted the claims of about 250 people. Most of them emigrated to the US, leaving Rio Rico a shell of its former self. Maybe it’s hard to believe that it was a very active town. My grandparents’ property, where the shop was, is still ours. That was our sort of income. We were born in the US. When my son was growing up he got to experience a little bit of that. I would just let him be free and barefooted and sit down and play with the dirt, the hens around him. People – they’re still good people. They’re still traditional families. Back in the day, there was a hotel there and a theatre. They got to see Pedro Infante, Sara Garcia – very important art for the Mexican history. There was a lot of people that would commute to Rio Rico just to see those artists. Rio Rico is a quiet place now. The few families still here are farmers and the visitors who do come are on their way to the border. So like a lot of people that migrated to the US illegally, that was kind of their stop. It did happen there and, you know, that’s part of their history as well, being so close to the river. As the US battles drug trafficking and illegal immigration, this borderland is now one of the most surveilled frontiers in the world. It’s hard to imagine a small irrigation company could ever have such an influence over a community like this ever again. The folks in Rio Rico today, they know little if nothing of the history of Rio Rico. Look at the sheds, almost everything falling apart, you know, it’s just like, maybe it’s hard to believe it was a very active town. That river doesn’t separate people. We’re still brothers. We’re still, you know, we’re all just people. So that’s my story about Rio Rico: One town, two countries and the lost Americans.
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