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>>Internment Camp
Crystal City, the county seat of Zavala County since 1928, lies in the southwest corner of the county. It traces its beginnings to a land development scheme conceived in the early 1900s by two Texas land speculators, E.J. Buckingham and Carl Groos. In 1905 the two real estate tycoons purchased all 10,000 acres of the Cross S Ranch in Zavala and Dimmit counties. By 1907 the ranch had been surveyed into sections and each section divided into ten acre “farms.” With the purchase of a ten-acre farm went the title to a town lot in the brand-new community of Crystal City. Buckingham and Groos instructed their engineers to place the town near the Nueces River. The developers decided to name the town “Crystal City” because of the clear artesian water in the area.
The town of Crystal City was designated on the map of the Cross S Ranch and plotted before the actual place was known; and as we all know, it just did miss the Bayouque. Lake Street was planned to be the main business street, and was made eight feet wide. The lots along it were twenty-five foot business lots, instead of the customary fifty-foot lots. Several early buildings were erected on the first block of East Lake Street. These included the Jackson Hotel and Hardware Store and a newspaper ofÞce. With the coming of the railroad and the location of the depot between East and West Zavala streets, other businesses built as near the depot as possible, changing the intended business district location. Occasional rains that made the streets made were a determining factor in locating a building near the depot.
The pancake-þat stretch of ground that the land agents advertised as “green the year around; no freezes,” appealed to snowbound Illinois and Indiana farmers. Some Missourians also came to be shown the wonder of the rich gray soil of this section. The soils proved to be fertile but their dryness spawned some misgivings in their minds. They soon learned, however, that the place was similar to the arid land of southern California. All you had to do was put water on it and you could grow practically anything. The Nueces River, fed by hill-country springs many miles to the north, afforded the water for irrigation.
The flowing wells fascinated the people from the north. After a visit in the winter time with flowers blooming everywhere, mild weather, and freely flowing water often spouting several feet in the air from artesian wells, many of the prospectors went home, sold out and moved back to the Cross S and Crystal City.
The development of the railroad was done in several stages. It was at first the Crystal City and Uvalde (C.C. & U.), lovingly called the “Cat Claw and Underbrush,” or the “Creep, Crawl, and Uncertain.” Later it was extended to Carrizo Springs and remained that way until 1912 when a line was built from Crystal City to Gardendale on the I & G N. A colony project around Fowlerton prompted the railroad to be extended from Gardendale to Fowlerton, and a short-time later, from Fowlerton to San Antonio via Pleasonton. Finally, a connection was made Pleasonton and Corpus Christi. The railroad was incorporated into the Missouri Pacific Lines.
On April 12, 1910 an election was held in Crystal City to incorporate as a “Town or Village.” Forty-six votes were cast; thirty-five on the question of incorporation. Twenty-four votes were cast for incorporation and eleven were cast against. L.F. Hall was elected mayor and R.A. Nash, Sr. and W.O. Day were elected commissioners. The total city population was five hundred and thirty; incorporation laws required a population of five hundred.
On November 7, 1910 a twenty-five-year franchise was granted to Del Rio & Western Telephone Company to provide telephone service for the city. Located in a small two-story frame building on West Zavala Street about two blocks north of the bank, the outfit was small at first but telephone service was always adequate. It was for many years under the management of C.D. Sloan, a fine, capable and popular man who was a civic leader until his death in 1941. Mr. Sloan was the uncle of Mrs. Owen Williams.
Electrical systems came and went ? mostly went ? until the 1920s. On April 18, 1911 a ten-year franchise was granted to W.W. Hall to provide electrical service to the city. He constructed an electric light plant that was run mostly by gasoline engines providing direct current. At one time the city water pump also supplied the power at night. Rules were for lights out at 11:00 p.m. and they blinked five minutes before as a warning signal to light a candle or go to bed. If a special occasion warranted it, the engine could be kept running a little longer, but at the final blink the guests had to make a hurried departure or be left in the dark.
No light bulbs over fifty watts were permitted, with five bulbs to a residence. There were no meters; a flat rate prevailed calculated by the number of drops in the house. One time the lights in the northwest part of town would have a repeated tendency to fade out and, in searching for the cause, it was discovered that an enterprising citizen was surreptitiously warming his cold feet in bed with an electric heating pad. His neighbors took a very dim view of this innovation.
The earliest settlers often had to lay their own water pipes for two or three blocks to connect with the city water system. The water works was purchased in 1912 by the city from the Cross S people. This was the first city utility. Water mains were laid and a tank erected which was a big project for a town the size of Crystal City.
Before the installation of the new water system a small water tank was utilized and irrigating at night was strictly prohibited. A snooper came around at night with a flashlight to see if anyone was watering. Anyone who had a yard or garden that was flourishing too much was looked upon with the suspicion of doing a light night watering.
For several years after the town began to grow, very few of the streets north and east of the main part of town were even cleared of brush and the city streets were just about impassable after any appreciable amount of rainfall. The Chamber of Commerce's drive to build sidewalks on both sides of Zavala Street, with two connecting walks from Newman’s corner to the Crystal Drug corner and from the bank to the Morrison corner, was held by residents of the time to be one of the most progressive and necessary improvements the town could perform.
The Nueces River has overflowed periodically since the town was begun. The first flood occurred on the night of June 30 and July 1, 1913. There were no radios or warning facilities and no way to warn people that the flood was coming until early in the morning of July first when it was learned that the railroad bridge had been washed out between La Pryor and Uvalde. As most of the citizens were new comers and inexperienced to the local flooding many were taken completely by surprise. One native of the county, John Mangum, was spending the night and day with the Chambers family who resided on the river at the north end of the Cross S Ranch. Previous experience warned him of what was to come, so he rode horseback along the river warning those he could find by chance of the coming flood. Several of the many families who lived along the river narrowly escaped disaster in their scramble to higher ground.
The next big flood occurred in July of 1932. By that time communication and improved roads permitted ample warning. The city flooded again in 1935 was declared by the old timers to be the worst yet. Brave volunteers in small boats evacuated families from their homes in the middle of the night. Livestock loss was high and homes along the banks of the river were washed off their foundations or left with mud and silt three and four feet deep inside.
The low lands which wrap around Crystal City on the south and west sides, locally known as “bayouques” have long been subject to spectacular flooding after heavy rainfall. The new town experienced its first rise of the bayouque in 1914, another serious one in 1918, one in 1925 and another in 1929. A full bayouque jointed the Espantosa Lake and spillway on the east and southeast of town during the Flood of Thirty-five. Waters of the Espantosa and Nueces flowed together, causing fear that the entire town might be flooded. Many families had to leave their homes because of the water and later clean up after the mud and water damage. Families helped each other, and churches aided their members in need. The downtown area did not flood as had been feared, but everyone agreed that it was a lot of water for a place that normally expects about twenty-two inches of rainfall a year.
Stock was permitted to roam the streets until 1917 when the stock law was passed. People who kept milk cows in the city strenuously objected to the confinement of stock laws and voted their sentiments.
Since the beginning of the town there has been a volunteer fire department; at first quite unorganized, but nevertheless effective. Before the days of electricity there was no warning siren so the only way to wake the sleeping populace late at night in case of an emergency was to have as many people as possible who owned fire arms to go out into their yard and fire them into the air. The volunteers enjoyed it so much it became a game. During the daytime the alarm was sounded by shouts of “Fire, Fire!” It was purely a “bucket brigade” in the early days but the firefighters were often able to save many a family's belongings.
In the mid-twenties a men's Chamber of Commerce was organized. With the coming of Mary Anglin, wife of Sheriff Everitt Anglin, from the valley, came big ideas about a Woman's Chamber of Commerce. So in 1928 it was organized! By 1929 the women realized a community house must be built. Mrs. C.D. Sloan was chairman, Grover C. Jackson donated a lot and moneymaking activities began. L.C. Colbert was awarded the low-bid contract for erecting a Community Building on East Kinney Street for $4,682.18. The total finished cost of the stuccoes building with its large meeting hall with rock fireplace, two small rooms, two restrooms and a kitchen was $5,044.18. The first of what would become countless luncheons and other community activities was held on February 13, 1930. The women of Crystal City had declared they were working for “a better Crystal City” and indeed they did.
In 1928 the mayor-council form of city government was changed to city manager, mayor and council. The first city manager was A.P. Hancock who was partly responsible for many improvements, including additional paved streets, an improved sewer system and installation of a new, powerful fire siren.
Residents believed their town had become a real place on the map by the end of 1929 when Central Power & Light had increased local facilities to include the huge ice storage vault, the theater brought “talkies” to town and the spinach and onion farmers were finding the “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” L.L. Williams served as city manager from 1934 until 1962. He was awarded a plaque in 1959 for twenty-five years of service.
In 1936 Governor James V. Allred proclaimed Crystal City as “the spinach capital of the world.” The first spinach festival was held that year, equaling any city extravaganza. Popeye became the “patron saint” of the city in 1937 with approval of his creator E.C. Segar and a statue of Popeye was erected in the park across the street from city hall. Yearly spinach festivals continued through 1941 when they were curtailed because of the advent of World War II. The festival committee was reestablished in 1982 and the Crystal City Spinach Festival with its parade, spinach cook-off, coronation of a queen and many other events again became a community endeavor to publicize the positive aspects of Crystal City.
When the desperate reality of World War II hit Crystal City the populace were ready to do their part. Rationing, Red Cross and tears were the order of the day. Our young men left to serve our country. Many did not return.
Crystal City was chosen to be the site of an internment camp for Japanese and a few German-Americans who were interned during World War II. Many wives of servicemen as well as other citizens of the community were employed to work at the camp. After the war and our servicemen had returned, The Camp as it was usually called, supplied rent homes for many of the young married folks as well as low cost homes for newcomers. These dwellings were occupied until the housing shortage was met. The school buildings as the Internment Camp helped relieve the crowded condition in the Crystal City Independent School District after the war. The site was deeded to the city. Airport Elementary, Zavala and Benito Juarez schools, the airport and low rent housing units occupy the land in 1985.
Beginning in the late fifties Urban Renewal provided a way for Crystal City to improve its sewer system, pave more roads and add water facilities to meet the present and future needs of the community, all through government grants paid for by the taxpayers. Blighted areas of the city were redeveloped, streets were better utilized by closing some and redirecting traffic on others, and old-timers continue their good-natured griping about getting lost in their own hometown.
In 1963 five Mexican-Americans were elected to the city council for the first time in the history of the Anglo-controlled city government. The first Mexican-American controlled city administration, headed by Mayor Juan Cornejo, included Reynaldo Mendoza, Manuel Maldonado, Antonio Cardenas and Mario Hernandez. The inþuence of this two-year administration is still felt into the eighties as it paved the way for other political, social and economic changes in Crystal City.
Under the leadership of Jose Angel Gutierrez as founder of La Raza Unida Party, the school system, the city government and the county were subjects of change. These three entities became “Chicano” dominated; the Anglo-American community withdrew their children from local schools, moved to other school districts, and many moved to other towns permanently. Crystal City community was split.
La Raza Unida Party and the local Chicano movement, after almost ten years under the leadership of Jose Angel Gutierrez, experienced discontent within its ranks, modified the Chicano philosophy, reorganized its course of action, ousted County Judge Jose Angel Gutierrez in 1980, and with the exception of a small number of people, abandoned the Raza Unida Party and incorporated some to the Democratic or the Republican Parties while others remained uncommitted.
Although many Americans are aware of the World War II imprisonment of West Coast Japanese Americans in relocation centers, few know of the smaller internment camps operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Under the authority of the Department of Justice, the INS directed about twenty such facilities. Texas had three of them located at Seagoville, Kenedy and Crystal City. Altogether there were 13 camps throughout the United States holding people of mostly Japanese origin, most of whom were naturalized citizens considered security risks because of possible ties with their homeland.
Crystal City was the location of the largest internment camp administered by the INS and Department of Justice. To reduce hardships during internment and to reunite families, the INS originally intended to detain only Japanese at Crystal City, especially the many Latin-American Japanese families brought to the United States for internment pending repatriation. German and Italians, however, were also held in Crystal City. In the fall of 1942 the INS assumed ownership of the Farm Security Administration's migratory farm worker's’ camp on the outskirts of Crystal City. Existing facilities were 41 three-room cottages, 118 one-room structures, and some service buildings. Eventually the INS spent more than a million dollars to construct more than 500 buildings on the camp's 290 acres.
Warehouses, auditoriums, administration offices, schools, clothing and food stores, a hospital, and many housing units were built. Like the camps at Kenedy and Seagoville, the Crystal City Internment Camp provided jobs and revenue for the town.
The first German internees arrived in December 1942. The first Japanese arrived in Seagoville on March 10, 1943.
In addition, prisoners were taken to Crystal City from other INS internment camps in Hawaii and Alaska (not states at the time), the United States, Puerto Rico, the West Indies, and South and Central American countries. The population of the Crystal City camp peaked at 3,326 in May 1945. By July of that same year hundreds of Germans and Japanese had been repatriated from Crystal City. More than a hundred had been released or paroled, 73 had been transferred to other camps, and 17 had died.
In December 1945 more than 600 Peruvian Japanese left for Japan because the Peruvian government would not allow them to return to Peru. That same month, a similar number of Japanese were allowed to go home to Hawaii. Some of the prisoners resisted repatriation to Japan and were not allowed to return to Central and South America. In late 1947, the United States determined to let them stay. November 1, 1947, more than two years after the end of World War II, the Crystal City internment camp closed ? the last facility detaining alien enemies to do so.
A monument was raised on the site in October of 1982, and the last remaining permanent building was dismantled in 1985. In 1988 Congress made a formal apology on the behalf of the nation to the 60,000 surviving Japanese-American internees and awarded each of them $20,000.
Size: 290 Acres
Cottages: 41
Room Shelters: 118
Buildings: 694
Accommodations for 3,500 People
Total 2096
Adult Male 505
Adult Female 490
Males under-21 548
Females under-21 553
Total 801
Adult Male 240
Adult Female 243
Males under-21 171
Females under-21 147
Total 4
Adult Male 1
Adult Female 1
Males under-21 0
Females under-21 2
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