County Seat Forcibly Moved By Nighttime Wagon Train

Holding the American flag is A.E. Chavez, the first clerk of Hidalgo County and one of the armed men who helped move the county seat from Hidalgo to Edinburg by ox-cart. My great-grandfather, Jose Roman Alamia, is the big fella with the mustache holding a white hat. He helped drive the ox-cart making Edinburg the county seat.

The photo was taken from a larger photo from an event recognizing the centennial anniversary on September 27, 1921 recognizing the (1821) declaration of Mexican Independence when Revolutionary forces occupied Mexico City as the Spanish withdrew. The photo was taken in the Valley and is now in the possession of the Museum of South Texas History.



The book Nickle Plated Highway, a book on early Hidalgo County politics, tells the story:

"The moving or the courthouse became a legend in Hidalgo County and, as with most legends, there were several versions of the story. Still to the present time the rumor persists that the action was illegal, and the county officials stole the records in the middle of the night and moved the county seat to Chapin, the present town of Edinburg.

There were some legitimate reasons for moving the courthouse to a new county seat. The eroding waters of the Rio Grande often caused flooding. There was no other transportation to the town, and it was not in the geographic center or the county.

A better reason than all the others was the fact that John Closner, W. F. Sprague, and D. B. Chapin, all three county officials, had organized a townsite company and bought up 50,000 acres or land on which the present county seat of Edinburg is located.

Closner had sold his prosperous San Juan Plantation near Hidalgo, the county seat, for $250,000, and Sprague, the cotton farmer-county commissioner, had put up money from the sale of his land. D. B. Chapin, lawyer and county judge, contributed his legal advice and secured the land for the new company.

Ann Magee continued her description by stating that at dusk on election day four wagons covered with tarpaulins with double teams of mules headed for Hidalgo. The mules were unhitched around the courthouse. The drivers and other workers began loading the records for the move to Chapin. Two other wagons were added to carry food supplies for both the workers and the animals. There were also oxcarts loaded with bricks for a temporary vault to be built in Chapin to hold the records.

Mr. W. L. Lipscomb, foreman of the San Juan Plantation and McGee's father, was in charge of the general preparations and responsible for the care of the mules and oxen. A caravan of special deputies on horseback was headed by the County Treasurer, A. Y. Baker, and assisting him were T. S. Mayfield and County Judge D. B. Chapin. Also in the group were John Closner, Sheriff, Andres Chavez, County Clerk, and Joe Alamia, Tax Assessor and Collector. These men were all armed.

On the site of the future town of Chapin, waiting for those moving the records, were camped about ten engineers who had surveyed the land for Judge Chapin. With them were approximately 400 Hispanic workmen who had been hastily summoned for the job and who had barely finished clearing the brush for the site of the new county square.

They were awakened from their sleep of exhaustion about 3:00 a.m. by the sound of gunfire. A few minutes later a caravan of loaded wagons moved into the clearing led by the celebrating county officials, firing their guns in jubilation.

Engineer E. M. Card, who was supervising the clearing, described the activity in an unpublished monograph.

The wagons carried the new capital in the form of old county records, together with the all-important returns of the election and resolutions which specified that the County seat of Hidalgo County should be moved from its old place on the banks of the Rio Grande to the center of a broad stretch of delta brush eight miles from the nearest railroad, which had hitherto been inhabited only by the howling coyote and his kin of the wilds.

The next day lumber from McAllen arrived which was used for floor and walls about three feet high. Over this was spread a tent where the county records were kept. Within a few days a two-story board house was constructed, and a crude vault was fashioned from the bricks hauled from Hidalgo."

This event was recognized by the Texas Legislature.