r/texashistory • u/PumpkinMan35 • 8h ago
The way we were A Street of Ghosts
In my garage are stacks and stacks of multi-gallon tots full of mostly out-of-print Texas history books. For the most part I have them all labeled and organized. Texas Revolution, Civil War, Pre-1800, General, and one in particular, Ghost Stories.
I have collected Texas ghost stories since I was a kid, even before I started on my path to becoming a Texas Historian. I have publications by Ed Syers, Docia Williams, Frank Dobie, Jay Nord, and many others. But in all of these books, I cannot recall ever seeing a single ghost tale from probably one of the most haunted locales in Texas. And, truthfully, I didn’t even know the yarns until I started researching the place myself.
Our first true origin Texas ghost story for Halloween Week kicks us down to Refugio, west of Victoria. Precisely to the intersection of West Roca and Highway 77 (S. Alamo). This is one of the most paranormally active sites in lower Texas, and you’ll soon discover why.
Largely unknown to most, Refugio is an old town. Its seed was planted in 1795 with the establishment of Nuestra Senora del Refugio, the last of the grand Spanish missions to be built in Texas.
The Refugio Mission was intended to be utilized for the conversion of the Karankawa culture, and had been specifically requested by a conglomerate of Karankawa villages. Unfortunately, this was mostly just an excuse to get Spanish military protection from other tribes that were in the same region, primarily the Apache.
Nonetheless, at its peak, the Refugio Mission had a congregation of over two hundred missionary Karankawas. But by the early nineteenth century, the Spanish government was faltering and it was getting increasingly difficult to get supplies and food to the Refugio Mission. With vastly declining numbers, the church was officially abandoned in 1822. But its story was long from being over.
Starting almost immediately, like most of the Spanish missions in Texas at the time, Nuestra Senora del Refugio was turned into a military outpost. First by the Spaniards, who tried to burn the place down before leaving Texas altogether, then by the Mexican government, followed by Irish colonists and eventually Texian revolutionaries. On March 14, 1836, the “Mission” was the scene of one of the most impressive battles of the Texas Revolution, and just two days later, one of the initial mass executions of Texas prisoners by the Mexican Army.
Afterwards, the place was left in ruins and slowly collapsed. It was totally demolished in 1860, re-established in 1867, then completely rebuilt in 1905. But despite the changing facades of the chapel itself, there was one factor from both the original mission and the battle that never changed. The graves.
In 2002, TXDOT was planning to widen Highway 77 and knew that the road would pass through the historical site of the Nuestra Senora del Refugio. An archaeological survey was ordered, and in a surprising discovery, over a hundred skeletal remains were found! Almost all of these had been lying underneath Highway 77 for decades. The majority of these individuals were found to be largely of Native American descent, most having been interred directly underneath the main chapel as was customary.
Years before that, in 1936, another eleven bodies had been found right across the street from the ones unearthed in 2002. These were members of the Yucatán Battalion who had been killed in the 1836 battle and just, unceremoniously, tossed into a mass grave on the battlefield as directed by Mexican General Jose Urrea. They remained interred for a century before finally being given a proper Catholic burial in the Refugio City Cemetery.
After learning all of this information, I was quite convinced that there had to be some ghost stories somewhere. So, I reached out to the Refugio community (via social media) and asked for any without directly mentioning the mission, the graves, the battle, or the street. It was not in vain!
People from Refugio started telling me about West Roca, and everything from Native American ghosts, to priests, and to Mexican soldiers. One individual, who was actually a co-worker of mine, related a verily haunting experience that his cousin had witnessed as a teenager in the mid-1990s.
As his cousin, who my coworker called up immediately upon me asking about it without even knowing anything that I had asked about, related: He was in a field along Crockett Street for a Fourth of July celebration. When one of the big fireworks went off, he saw a figure wearing a military uniform and a shako across the field from him, aiming what looked like a musket towards the crowd.
He panicked and hollered to their uncle, who was standing between him and the figure, to get down because someone had a gun and was about to shoot towards them. But there were no gunshots, and when he and a few others rushed over to see who the person was, no one was there. Later, in that same spot, he was looking around and found a Mexican Army cartridge belt under the ground.
Now, as with every such case, maybe it was true or maybe it was fake. But remember those Texian revolutionaries who were mass executed that I mentioned earlier? They were killed in that very field on March 16, 1836, and left to rot.
But why a Mexican soldier and a Mexican cartridge belt? Well, most of the Mexican troops at the Battle of Refugio were not the best supplied members of Santa Anna’s army. Most were either volunteers or conscripts, issued badly degraded equipment. In contrast, the majority of the Texian rebels were better geared, and what use of a good cartridge belt would a dead Texian need? Saavy?
West Roca in Refugio is a street of ghosts. With over a hundred bodies scattered across such a small area, all of which were mostly unknown until 1936 and 2002, would you expect anything else? Also, those are just the ones that have been found. I wonder how many others still rove in the night?
Till next time, stay Spooky my friends.
