HISTORIC OLVERA BUILDING SITE OF CORTINA-SHEARS FRACAS?

By Jose Sandoval

For years, many historians – from J.T. Canales to Milo Kearney and Tony Knopp – have glazed over the exact spot where Brownsville hero-villain Juan Cortina shot city marshal Robert Shears a hot July 13, 1859.

When we used to ask former City Heritage officer Joe Gavito the exact spot, he said it was unknown.

Canales and the historians agree that the confrontation occurred in Market Square. 

In some accounts, Cortina is sitting down having coffee at the cafe that belonged to Gabriella Catzell, a Swiss immigrant who ran the business with her family. Those accounts say that as Cortina watched,  Shears was arresting Tomas Cabrera, a vaquero who worked at his mother's ranch, for public drunkedness.

In others, such as the narrative by Gene Fernandez, operations manager of the Brownsville Historical Association, Cortina was not sitting having coffee, but was just riding by when he saw Shears attempting to arrest Cabrera after one of Catzell's children had been sent by his mother to get the marshal and arrest Cabrera who was causing a disturbance and bothering her business.

One of Fernandez's ancestors bought the one-story building from Catzell and added the second story and balcony, he said. Later the Olveras, who set up a shoe-repair business, retained the building the way they acquired it from Fernandez. Recently, its exterior has been restored to that architectural design.

In that account, Shears, who was around the corner at Washington and 12th, arrived and tried to arrest Cabrea, who also happened to have an arrest warrant pending against him for an unspecified offense. In that narrative, Shears just happened to be having his service firearm in repair and was using a "loaner" when he tried to arrest Cabrera.

Canales wrote that when Cortina objected to the rough way that Shears was treating Cabrera (pistol whipping him), Shears turned around and asked "What's it to you, Mexican?," whereupon Cortina ended up shooting him in the shoulder and riding off with Cabrera.

The other account differs in one respect. It states that Cortina ordered Shears to release his ranch hand and when Shears refused, he fired one shot in the air and then Shears used his second gun to try to shoot Cortina, only to hit his saddle horn because the gun was so old and in such bad condition that it was a miracle the shell dd not burst in the barrel.

It was at that point – and this is where both accounts meld – Cortina shot the marshal in the shoulder and rose away with Cabrera to his mother's ranch. (We have been unable to find any photographs of Shears, but that is his grave at the Old Brownsville Cemetery.)

Later, in September 28, Cortina and between 50 to 80 men rode into Brownsville and briefly occupied the city searching for their enemies. It would be two days later before Cortina left the city and issued a proclamation September 30 against his enemies from his ranch about two miles north of present-day Villanueva. 

Tensions remained high and when a city posse captured Cabrera and Texas Rangers and a mob of some 20 citizens hanged the ranch hand. When the Brownsville Tigers and then Rangers tried to capture or kill Cortina, both were repulsed and the Cortina Wars began. It would be decades before turmoil caused by the animosity between Cortina and his enemies would subside.

So was the Fernandez-Olvera building the spot where the Cortina-Shears confrontation occurred that ignited the race (Mexican-Anglo) confrontations that would bedevil the border are for years to come? 

So far, this is the nearest we've come to ascertaining the spot. Unless someone else can come up with a better account, it's as close as we have come to ascertain the exact location of the fracas.