Casas Blancas

Casas Blancas, begun in 1776 as an outgrowth of the colonizing activities of José de Escandón, is a ghost town seven miles west of Roma in southwestern Starr County. The land was originally granted to Antonio García by the Spanish government in 1767. The García family occupied the site as late as 1852 and owned it until about 1880. Through marriage and purchase the González family acquired the entire grant and eventually occupied the fifteen rock houses erected by the Garcías. The whole family left suddenly in 1894. According to a local story a feud divided them into two factions and resulted in one man's murder. Reportedly, the rest of the family secretly buried the victim in the family cemetery and left their homes. Another story says that a ghostly apparition of the murdered man caused the evacuation. In 1899 a school at Casa Blancas had twenty-five students and one teacher. Years later locals asserted that a curse was on the site. The old rock houses gradually deteriorated, and by 1949 all that remained of the community was a few stones, the rest having been used to build new houses a few miles away.