Tradition meets tragedy in the chilling local lore of the Rio Grande Valley. Hidden in the dense brush and around oxbow lakes wait sinister secrets, unnerving vestiges of the past and wraiths of those claimed by the winding river. The spirit of a murdered student in Brownsville paces the locker room where she met her end. Tortured souls of patients lost in the Harlingen Insane Asylum refuse to be forgotten. Guests at the LaBorde Hotel in Rio Grande City report visions of the Red Lady, who was spurned by the soldier she loved and driven to suicide. Author David Bowles explores these and more of the most harrowing ghost stories from Fort Brown to Fort Ringgold and all the haunted hotels, chapels and ruins in between. South Texas native David Bowles is an award-winning author and professor at the University of Texas. Bowles is the author of several other titles, including the Pura Belpré Honor Book, The Smoking Mirror and Border Lore: Folktales and Legends of South Texas. His writing has appeared in Translation Review, Metamorphoses, Asymptote, Rattle, Axolotl, Huizache, Concho River Review, Border Senses, Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and more. Ghosts of the Rio Grande Valley By David Bowles, Jose Melendez The History Press Copyright © 2016 David Bowles All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4671-1992-4 Contents Introduction, Cameron County, 1. Port Isabel Lighthouse, 2. The Phantoms of Fort Brown, 3. The Haunting of the Colonial Hotel, 4. The Wailing Woman of San Benito, 5. The Harlingen Insane Asylum, Willacy County, 6. San Perlita and the Devil's Lagoon, 7. The Lonely Ghost of Lyford, 8. Willacy County Courthouse, Hidalgo County, 9. The Revenants of Llano Grande, 10. Old Hidalgo County Jail, 11. The Wraiths of the San Juan Hotel, 12. McAllen's Casa de Palmas Hotel, 13. La Lomita Chapel, 14. Shary Mansion, Starr County, 15. Fort Ringgold, 16. LaBorde House, 17. The Woman in White at Roma, Bibliography, About the Author, CHAPTER 1 PORT ISABEL LIGHTHOUSE The History A picturesque town sits at the easternmost edge of Cameron County, where Texas State Highways 48 and 100 converge near the Laguna Madre, an extensive though shallow hypersaline lagoon that stretches between the Texas coast and Padre Island. Often treated as a mere gateway to the more tourist-frequented South Padre Island, this community — Port Isabel — is a treasure horde of history and legend. There are many haunted locations in the city of Port Isabel, residents affirm. The Historic Queen Isabel Inn, opened by railroad magnate Caesar Kleberg in 1906 as the Point Isabel Tarpon and Fishing Club, served as the only local hotel for two decades, becoming the focal point for some of the area's most important events, like President Warren G. Harding's last vacation before his swearing in and the yearly Rio Grande Valley Fishing Rodeo. Though several hurricanes did their best to put the hotel out of commission, it remained standing, and those who visit its stately rooms report hearing the footsteps of the dead echoing down its halls. Those same storms sent many ships to their doom before the construction of the lighthouse. If you look out across the bay under the right sort of moonlight, the old folks will tell you, you might just see ghost ships plying the gentle waves before being lost in the early morning mist. In 1926, the Yacht Club Hotel was built to serve the needs of the Rio Grande Valley's elite, men like land baron John Shary. The ritzy spot hosted visitors as legendary as Amelia Earhart and Al Capone; it also witnessed great tragedy, such as when a yacht burned to cinders nearby, killing a well-to-do couple visiting from New England. But like many spots along the U.S.-Mexican border, the hotel absorbed some glimmer of their souls. For to this day, visitors swear they see a young man and woman decked out in the gaudy clothes of the 1920s, chatting and laughing before fading just as one approaches to meet them. Indeed, Port Isabel has a long and variegated history. Brazos Island, just south of South Padre Island, was first settled in the eighteenth century as a series of wharves along the bay — facilitating the transportation of goods upriver past the sandbars at the mouth of the Rio Grande. The inhabitants, striking out for fresh water, found themselves in the area of present-day Port Isabel. In fact, legend has it that pirate Jean Lafitte established a fifteenfoot well just northwest of there in the early 1800s to better provide for his privateering ventures. By the 1830s, a small community had sprung up around these water sources. It called itself El Frontón de Santa Isabel, but that name would change multiple times over the next quarter century: Punta de Santa Isabel for most of the Mexican-American War, Point Isabel with the establishment of a post office, Brazos Santiago when the Oblates of Mary Immaculate established the chapel of Our Lady by the Sea and finally — after a horrible ch