107 YEARS AGO, TWO MEN DIED BY HANGING AT HISTORIC JAIL

 By Juan Montoya

May 19, 1916 – 107 years ago last month –  was a typical hot sticky day in Brownsville.

The weather hovered between 74 degrees at night and soared to the 90s during the day.

Inside the the newly-constructed (1912) Cameron County Jail at the corner of Van Buren and 12th street, two men – identified by participants in a bandit raid that left two Anglo men known for their segregationist and racist views dead even though the Civil War had been over more for more than 50 years – were in a chapel saying their last prayers before their execution by hanging.

Melquiades Chapa was between 20 and 23 years old and his companion on the gallows was Jose Buenrostro, 25, had been arrested for offenses related to banditry by perpetrators from across the Rio Grande. This was the height of the cross-border banditry days when people from both sides of the river would cross in search of stolen cattle or to settle a score with residents on either side.

An article written about those days by Norman Rozeff which appeared in the Valley Morning Star accurately paints a picture of the times.

"For over half a century the combative years of the second decade were popularly termed the era of the 'Bandit Wars.' Tempered with the passage of time and as modern-day historians take a more objective look at this period, the term 'Border Wars' has come into use," he wrote. 

The latter term better portrays the many manifestations of the area’s conflicts at that earlier time. Across the river, the vacuum left by the departure of dictator Porfirio Diaz turned into all-out war and anarchy with adherents to the Constitutionalist cause banding under Pancho Villa in the north and Emiliano Zapata in the south. 

At any one time, different generals claimed control of the presidential chair with no one really controlling the northern or southern regions of the country.

The revolution touched the north side of the river as well, with civilian refugees and Mexican combatants alike seeking shelter and safety from the fierce battles that decimated the northern Tamaulipas areas.

Juan Cortina had been driven from the border and placed under house arrest by Diaz when he came to power. He had died in home arrest in Mexico City in 1894, but the anti-Anglo bitterness left over by his revolt against the newcomers who dispossessed local residents of their lands was still an open wound.

The year 1915 was an especially tumultuous year for cross-border raids.

Rozeff says that in that year, multiple murders occurred of both Mexicans and Anglos, often blamed on the theft of cattle or horses and the retaliation by both against people they thought were to blame, Often, innocent people perished in the conflict.

The incident that led to the two men praying in the chapel before they were to be hung had its roots on August 6. A. L. Austin and his son Charles, were shelling corn on their farm outside Sebastian when a band of armed men approached the farm in search of them. 

The Austins were known as segregationists whose personal behavior had angered local Tejanos. The senior Austin was head of the local Law and Order League, a local vigilante group blamed for terrorizing Mexicans across South Texas.

Another historian says that the men were targeted by Mexican-Americans who followed the Plan de San Diego, a movement to drive out the Anglo newcomers who had terrorized local inhabitants and Mexican-American ranchers for their land and eventually annex Texas to Mexico.

A well-known Plan de San Diego advocate named Luis de la Rosa – an adherent of anti-Porfirio Diaz anarchist Ricardo Flores Magon – led the Sebastian raid where Austin and his son Charles were killed. Austin who, according to federal investigators, "had driven several bad men out of that section" and was therefore an ideal target for the raiders who thought of him as a racist. Within the next few days after the deaths of the Austins, several local Mexicans were killed by either the Texas Rangers or vigilantes in revenge for their murders.

One account has the band confronting the Austins in front of Mrs. Austin, and after the raiders had demanded the family weapons, father and son were dragged from the kitchen and summarily shot. Patrols out the next day failed to find the marauders. 

However, a second version of the Austin story differs in some details: "Then at a nearby granary the bandits picked up A.L. Austin and his son Charlie. They were taken to their house which was then robbed. After assuring Mrs. Austin that her men would be safe, the robbers drove them away in a wagon manned by a young man named Elmer Millard. The Austins were then shot to death, but Millard was released. Millard, as a star witness, testified not only against Chapa and Buenrostro, but also against numerous local Mexicans, some of who were not in the vicinity at the time."

The men, after they were identified by Millard in the attack on the Austins, protested their innocence until the very end. Authors Charles H Harris and Louis R Sadler, in "The Plan de San Diego: Tejano Rebellion, Mexican Intrigue" wrote that "on the day before their execution, Chapa reiterated his innocence and requested a bottle of whiskey to calm his nerves and asked that there be music at his execution. He and Buenrostro requested that they be hanged together. The authorities were happy to oblige; two nooses were prepared for the gallows." 

Newspaper accounts of the hanging said the men were tied together and that they fell through the trap at the same time, dying just a few minutes after they fell.

Robert Runyon, who photographed many of the area's historic events, was on hand before and after the hanging to record the events for history.
From there on, things just got hotter. In fact, only three days later, on May 22, 1916, the heat climbed to 102, a record that still stands for that day.

J.B. Rogers, a U.S. Bureau of Investigation agent, wrote his superiors that "Since the execution of Chapa and Buenrostro, there is an attitude of stoicism among the Mexicans. They are both afraid and angry. Very little talk is done. They feel than a great injustice was done by the execution of these two men. The men maintained to the last that they were innocent and their countrymen believed them. The race feeling has been greatly intensified by the occurrence. The danger of an outbreak has been aggravated."

The renovated jail has since been turned into the law offices of Colvin, Chaney, Saenz & Rodriguez, who in their website state that: "Over the years, some of South Texas' most notorious criminals have been incarcerated in the jail.

"The jail also served as the temporary residence of Charles "Hit Man" Harrelson – father of actor Woody Harrelson of "Cheers" and movies fame – after his arrest for the murder-for-hire of South Texas grain dealer Sam Degelia, Jr., a resident of Hidalgo County. The elder Harrelson was later convicted in the assassination of United States District Judge John Wood (in San Antonio)."