BHA BOARD MEMBER MCNAIR WANTS TO REWRITE BROWNSVILLE'S HISTORY TO IMMORTALIZE HIS FAMILY

The mission of the Brownsville Historical Association is to PRESERVE, educate, and promote the history, heritage, and cultural arts of Brownsville, Texas and its environs through exhibitions, educational programs, publications, cultural events, and archival collections.

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

"The Rio Grande was the beginning point for life in Brownsville.
The river drew armies to contest its strategic importance. It sparked an international trading economy that continues today. And, as the economy built the town, the Rio Grande provided the geographic focus for hundreds of streets.

From the river bank, Brownsville's first street, Elizabeth, became a trunk that branched out into downtown streets, eventually developing a growing network of limbs.

Most of the city's major thoroughfares, except for a handful created to serve recently-developed subdivisions, relate back to the river. This sometimes makes it difficult to tell directions, but it also connects the modern-day resident with the past, and makes the city's history ever-present.

"In the mid 1700s, Spanish colonizers organized villages along the Rio Grande, including Matamoros. By the early 1800s, Charles Stillman, a Connecticut merchant, settled across the river from Matamoros.

By 1850, two years after the state of Texas was formed, Stillman's little settlement was named Brownsville and a city government was formed.

Old Brownsville's streets basically form today's downtown. The first, Elizabeth Street, was named for Stillman's wife. It runs parallel to the Rio Grande, which flows in a southeast direction. Most of the streets in Old Brownsville run either parallel or perpendicular to the river.

"The river almost went up to where the El Jardin Hotel (on Levee Street) is now. The ships would tie up there," said Bruce Aiken, executive director of the Historic Brownsville Museum.

Levee Street, west of Elizabeth, ran alongside the Rio Grande, similar to today's Mexico Boulevard.

"The street was right by the river," Aiken said. But the river eroded in a southwest direction, leaving a trail of resacas between Gateway International Bridge and El Ramireño neighborhood. Fronton and St. Francis streets, Mexico Boulevard and neighborhoods like La Muralla and Colonia Jose Tomas Ramirez (El Ramireño) were originally in Matamoros."
https://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/local/apr-taking-it-to-the-streets/article_9406983d-8fa0-5d66-9a89-da09ddc8f92d.html

The mission of the Brownsville Historical Association is to PRESERVE, educate, and promote the history, heritage, and cultural arts of Brownsville, Texas and its environs through exhibitions, educational programs, publications, cultural events, and archival collections.


Former city commissioner Harry McNair, a BHA board member who who apparently has never read that organization's mission statement, reminds one of Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984.

As a records editor at the Ministry of Truth, Smith's job was to literally rewrite history, revising old newspaper articles so they fell in line with the Party's current vision of the truth.

So instead of preserving history, McNair wants to rewrite it to establish his family as the foundations of this community. And he apparently also does not know the history of his city.

“I don’t want this to be about me, it is about my father and grandfather,” McNair told the Brownsville Herald when he deigned to has decided to speak up on the whole Fronton Street and McNair Family Drive issue.

"Fronton means nothing … You’re Hispanic, what does Fronton mean to you?” McNair asked.

Continuing on how there is no official information on why the street was really named “Fronton” and what it actually means, McNair said what has made the street historic are the businesses that have been located in that same street for almost 100 years. Is this nut job serious? And he is entrusted to preserve our history at the BHA?

“People told me (Fronton) is a game in Spain, other people said it is short for Frontera and one of the latest ones I’ve heard it’s in English ‘Front-on’ it fronts on something. So, it has no meaning, it has no ties to anything historic. Fronton Street is not historic, what is historic are the companies, the businesses and what occurred on the street. We can relate to that because my forefathers came here and started a business in 1920,” McNair said.

So history started on Fronton Street even before 1850 – and means fronting the river, Harry, the same river that led Stillman to establish the city across Matamoros for doing business – that eventually attracted families like yours in 1920s, relative late comers as far as local history goes.

This evening, the  Brownsville City Commission is set to vote at this evening’s City Commission Meeting to change McNair Family Drive back to East Fronton Street. The meeting begins at 5 p.m. in downtown City Hall.

But Harry doesn't just want to have his cake. He has eaten it, too. Y quiere dar topes.

The McNairs own three properties on East Fronton  which are historically exempt and, unlike all other property owners in the area, pay no taxes to the city. In fact, the last time they received the exemption was for the years 2016 to 2020 and included 100 percent tax historical exemptions not only from the City of Brownsville, but also from the the Brownsville Navigation District, Cameron County, Texas Southmost College and the Brownsville Independent school District, with 48.88 percent.

The buildings themselves are nondescript warehouses, shells of brick and mortar that the McNairs still rent to the highest bidder.

Except for the paint on the outside walls there is little evidence that - as they claim in their inclusion into the list of the National Historical Register "the McNair family has restored many of the old factory and office buildings which date back to the early 1900’s and continue to improve East Fronton Street through their building restoration and beautification projects."

The building at 504 Fronton is listed at an appraised value of  $218,800 that in 2017 had a BISD estimated tax of $1,383. The McNairs paid no city, BND, TSC, or Cameron County taxes on the old warehouse, unlike their neighbors who did.

The building on 730 E. Fronton (the one with the Texas logo across the street in the photo above) is listed at an appraised value of $108,641 that in 2017 had a BISD estimated tax of $687.15. The McNairs paid no city, BND, TSC, or Cameron County taxes on the old warehouse, unlike their neighbors who did.

The building at 759 E. Fronton (in the foreground in the photo above) is listed at an appraised value of $108,641 that in 2017 had a BISD estimated tax of $687.15. The McNairs paid no city, BND, TSC, or Cameron County taxes on the old warehouse, unlike their neighbors who did.

In short, the McNairs did not pay city, BND, TSC, or Cameron County taxes on their three buildings on E. Fronton with an aggregate appraised value of $441,871, unlike their neighbors who did.

In fact, this penchant for listing their properties as historical extends to the Harry and Reba McNair home on 39 Sunset Drive which is listed at an appraised value of $350,828 and also was 100 percent exempt from city, BND, TSC, or Cameron County taxes.

Some of those old timers living on Fronton bit their lips at the city the renaming of their old street after the McNairs. They say that businesses like E. De La Garza, the Gavito Fish House and the Margarita Lopez Tortilleria are just as old, if not older than the warehouses.

"I understand the why since the McNair family had the clothing warehouses on east Fronton but really?," wrote a local social media commented. "E. De la Garza wholesale has been there for ages. Do they get a portion of street named for them too? Several families I personally know have lived on east Fronton for generations, do they get a portion of the street named for themselves?"