The border between the United States and Mexico has been a frequent topic of conversation and the news this summer. The Twelve Mile Circle doesn’t focus on political issues explicitly but it does have an interest in situations created by geography such as the recent border pirate phenomenon. In fact it was that situation that led me to the current topic, although indirectly.
Source: Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL)
I noticed something unusual as I examined the international border between Laredo, Texas, USA and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, México. There is a notch, a little chunk of the Mexican state of Nuevo León inserting itself along the international border wedged between Tamaulipas and Coahuila. The little neck is only about 15 kilometres (9 miles) wide and not much longer. However, that’s sufficient to qualify Nuevo León as one of only ten "border states" found on either side of the line, as legitimately as Texas and its 1,997 km (1,241 mi) stretch.
It’s much easier to see the notch as one drills-down within an interactive map to capture it in more detail. Follow the international border northwest out of Nuevo Laredo and it practically jumps from the image. This would be an easy pickup of three Mexican states right in a row for those who collect those types of things. Additionally, Tamaulipas and Coahuila would be neighboring states if it wasn’t for the odd Nuevo León hernia interfering with their placement.
View Larger Map
Take an even closer look at the protrusion and notice an unusual pattern of roads. The small town of Colombia appears to be platted on a typical grid but the infrastructure southeast of it looks odd. That’s because its a staging area for international trade between the United States and Mexico, more suited to warehouse space and tractor-trailers than to residential neighborhoods. Nuevo León is a highly-industrialized powerhouse of the Mexican economy with per capita GDP and income nearly double the national average. They use their little border nub as a means to move products onto the international market.
Amazingly this didn’t happen until the early 1990′s with the construction of the Colombia-Solidarity International Bridge. Nuevo León watched idly as other border states cashed-in for years. Adjacent Tamaulipas positioned Nuevo Laredo as the most important border crossing in Latin America, and the city thrived as a result. Finally Nuevo León got its bridge across to the United States and created infrastructure around the town of Colombia to capture some of that cross-border trade.
I don’t have a complete answer on how Nuevo León obtained its border notch or how neighboring Tamaulipas got its odd northwestern tentacle along the river. However, I think I might have at least a partial answer or perhaps an educated guess. I consulted the website of the ever-helpful Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection of the University of Texas at Austin. Deep down on one of its menus lists I found a map of Mexican political divisions in 1824, created from historical sources in 1972. Assuming it’s an accurate representation, then it would follow that Nuevo León has had its river notch for close to two centuries (at least). Tamaulipas got its odd appendage because the northern third of its 1824 footprint — everything north of the Rio Grande — is now part of Texas.
That doesn’t answer why Nuevo León has river access. It merely points out that it’s been that way for a long time and predates the international border. It’s an arid area with very little rainfall so maybe the notch existed as a pathway to water. I’m speculating but I don’t know. Perhaps someone in the Twelve Mile Circle audience has greater familiarity with this topic and can use the comments section as an educational opportunity.
I crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico, bypassing all official border stations and every immigration or customs officer, and returned the same way. I suppose this was technically illegal although it was allowed with a wink and a nod on both sides of the boundary. After all, the nearest official crossing was more than a hundred miles away. That’s how things had always worked at this spot when I crossed here years before thoughts of 9-11 and the resulting fears of a porous border.
I mentioned my epic trip around the United States a couple of days ago. I also said I wouldn’t post much about that on the Twelve Mile Circle unless I came across a geo-oddity. Well, I stumbled across this one as I leafed through my photos and it triggered a flood of memories.
A snaking river cuts through unforgiving desert terrain to create the distinctive shape of southwestern Texas on a map. It also forms a long stretch of an international border between the United States and Mexico. It’s called the Rio Grande on the northern side of the border and Río Bravo del Norte on the south. A large curve or crook appears along its length, and within that cradle sits an Americans nature preserve called Big Bend National Park. I crossed paths with that land one sunny afternoon in May 1992.
My companions all wanted to hike Emory Peak, the highest point in Big Bend at 7,832 feet. I declined. I’d noticed something odd, a little dotted line on the park map marking a "ferry," leading across the border to a little town named Boquillas del Carmen in the Mexican state of Coahuila.
Amazingly, even this tiny town now appears in digital clarity on Google’s satellite view:
View Larger Map
Even back then I had a thing for geo-oddities and ferries. All my friends headed towards the mountain. I set off alone for Mexico. I drove down to the ferry landing — and I use that term loosely — because it was just a guy with a battered aluminum skiff and oars. It didn’t bother me much that he had a one-gallon plastic milk jug with the top cut off, resting at his side to bail out the boat. The river wasn’t deep nor was it moving particularly swiftly so I felt the worst that might happen if we sank would be some wet clothes. I paid my small fare, maybe a couple dollars, and we crossed without incident.
I faced a choice on the Mexican side. I could either walk the short, earthen path up to Boquillas or pay another buck or two and ride on the back of a burro. Of course I was going to ride on the burro. When was I ever going to get that chance again?
Boquillas… and the burro I rode in on
Boquillas was a tiny village, alone in the desert. Nary a speck of greenery poked through the dust. I rummaged through the small market, haggled for one of those stereotypical Mexican blankets and probably paid too much. I sat on the patio, sipped a Tecate and snapped the photo you see above. That was my view. The only photo I took.
It was about that time that I realized I was the only gringo in all of Boquillas. It concerned me very briefly that everything I held dear, ever civil liberty I understood, every recourse I might have was sitting on the other side of that river. I was an undocumented foreigner, an illegal alien, who couldn’t even speak the language. Anyone could do anything to me and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Then I relaxed as I understood that the people who lived here would never allow that to occur. Their economy would collapse if bad things happened to tourists. I was right. It was perfectly safe.
In researching this, I’ve learned that the crossing to Boquillas has been completely locked down and closed by the American authorities. The population has plummeted from about 300 inhabitants to less than a hundred. There are no tourists anymore and the economy has collapsed, an unintended consequence of the War on Terror.
In a recent entry I provided a listing of the six flags that make up the famous “Six Flags Over Texas.” What is less known, and what many Texans along the southeastern border with Mexico believe, is that there were actually SEVEN flags over Texas. Had history gone a little differently this flag from the Republic of the Rio Grande would have joined the more recognizable list.
Three sections of Mexico split away as a result of Santa Anna’s increasingly dictatorial rule: the Republics of Texas, Rio Grand and Yucatán. The Republic of the Rio Grande existed only briefly for about ten months in 1840, sandwiched between Mexico and the Republic of Texas. It was composed of three Mexican states, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Coahuila claimed a northern border up to the upper Medina River, and Tamaulipas up to the Nueces River. Both claims extended far north of the Rio Grande where the Republic of Texas staked its southern border. For a time this patch of land was in serious dispute, claimed by Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande and the Republic of Texas.
The Republic of the Rio Grande set its capital north of the river in Laredo, in what is now Texas. The Republic failed when the commanding general of its army accepted a position as a brigadier general in the Mexican army. Today there is a
museum in what was once the old capitol building in Laredo.
Image of flag has been released to the public domain at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_the_Republic_of_Rio_Grande.svg
Image of the area disputed by Mexico, Rio Grande and Texas licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Texas_Mexico_Disputed_Border_1836_to_1848.PNG,
with http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/co&tex1836.htm#currtex
cited as the original source of the edited uploaded material
