Old Casa Blanca, which is several miles from the railroad switch by
that name, is on the Nueces River in what is now Jim Wells, but was a
part of Nueces, County. “Of the history of this old ruin,” says Mrs.
Sutherland, [61] “no one knows a word.” The record of it is preserved
in legend alone, and of legends there are many. Mrs. Sutherland links
the place with a certain purported silver mine and recalls a tale of “a
find” made there in 1868.
In its past, Casa Blanca was both Spanish fort and mission. So runs the
legend told by Mr. E. M. Dubose. After the priests left it, it was
occupied by a Mexican sheepman who prospered mightily. Finally he sold
out his sheep and land for cash, but stayed on a while at Casa Blanca
to wind up his affairs. Now the fact that he had thousands and that he
kept them within the walls of the building was corroborated to Mr.
Dubose by a man named Reems, who once lived in Pearsall. Reems stayed
with the old sheepman three or four days just before the latter was
killed and got a hint as to the location of the money. After the
murder, he returned to Casa Blanca and found a worn hole in the very
spot that he had “figured out” to be the hiding place.
Not long after it became known that the sheepman had acquired his cash,
some Mexicans captured him and tortured him until he told where the
money was, whereupon they put an end to his life. At this juncture,
they found that they were being spied on by a second set of robbers.
Under the concealment of night they hid their booty in a kind of rock
pen near the fort, throwing the body of the murdered sheepman on top of
it. They spent the night under protection of the walls, hoping to fight
their way out the next morning.
The battle began at daybreak. The besiegers far outnumbered the
besieged, and in desperation the latter scattered into the brush. There
one of them named Carbal was cut off, and as he fell from a deadly shot
he saw his own younger brother bend over him. It was the brother whom
years ago he had taught the first lessons of outlaw life, and now that
brother in ironic ignorance had paid for the lesson. Carbal understood
the ignorance and with his dying words told where the loot was hid.
Even as he told, the last of his companions was killed.
But the victorious desperadoes were never to reap the golden harvest of
their victory. In the fight they had suffered losses, and now upon
their heels came the terrible Texas Rangers. Retreating towards the Rio
Grande, they were all “naturalized” [62] on Texas soil but one or two
who managed to reach the security of Mexico. From that one or two has
come down to us, in confused form, the story of the rich sheepman, his
lost money, and the blood spilled over it. Ed Dubose got the story,
together with a chart, from an old Mexican whom he made drunk on
tequilla. Later he tried to find the “kind of rock pen” near Casa
Blanca, but could locate no trace of it.