Editor’s Note: Moments in Time is a collection of recovered newspaper briefs and other publications, compiled by local historian, Steve Hathcock, that offer a look back at the history of the Rio Grande Valley and the rest of the world.
PORT ISABEL FORTUNE
BELIEVED FOUND
Here is a Port Isabel treasure story that is told from personal knowledge by many residents of that section:
One summer, not so many years ago, several young men arrived there in a “T-Model” Jalopy and said they intended to vacation there. They rented an old weather-beaten house which had stood in the port city for untold years. They insisted on having the old structure, although better accommodations were available.
Instead of spending their time fishing and swimming along with the other vacationers, the young men rarely ventured outside of their doors.
WAS FORTUNE FOUND?
The house had a deserted atmosphere and after a while there was no sign of the visitors.
The owner of the house became alarmed, fearing that the visitors might have met with foul play, and he went to the old structure to investigate. The men were gone, but the sight that met his eyes told him what had happened. The flooring had been dug up, and the vacationers had dug a deep pit. In the center of the pit there was a rust encrusted cavity. Many old timers are convinced that the visitors carried away an old cast iron washing pot in which some early settler had buried his fortune. The Port Isabel site was not the only one which has been visited by treasure hunters, usually from out of the Valley, who have come on to the legends and have sought to locate the treasures which are reported.
Was the treasure really buried there? Has it been found, or was it only the result of the colorful imagination of those from earlier times, fond of spinning colorful stories about the historic past of Brownsville and the Valley? Quien sabe? (Editor’s note: this was originally published in the Brownsville Valley on Feb. 27, 1938)
SAN BENITO FARMER SAVES
THREE FROM FIERY DEATH
The Texas Department of Public Safety says that a San Benito farmer has been credited with saving the lives of three Iowa residents. A camper truck occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Russell Welder and Jim Gould of Madrid, Iowa, overturned and burned on US Hwy. 281 South of San Benito in the lower Rio Grande Valley. Officials say Ed Bauer, who farms land near the accident scene, extinguished the fire and pulled the three persons to safety. The three Iowa residents were then taken to Harlingen and put aboard a bus for San Antonio to begin their return trip to Iowa. Offers a service say the pickup truck, camper and all their belongings were destroyed by the fire. Bauer says he doesn’t want to be interviewed. He says he only did what anyone else would have done. (Editor’s note: this was originally aired on WBAP-TV (Television station: Fort Worth, Tex.) on Feb. 15, 1973)
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