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(Courtesy of Hardy-Heck-Moore
& Associates, Inc. Cultural Resource Managment, Austin,
Texas.)
Extract from National Register of Historic Places,
Nomination of The Rio Vista Farm Historic District, Socorro,
El Paso County, Texas:
General Description
The Rio Vista Farm Historic District encompases an
intact and well-preserved cluster of historic intitutional
buildings associated with El Paso County’s Poor Farm
program. The district, which includes approximately 14 acres
of relatively level land, is in the northwest portion of the
City of Socorro, about one-half mile northeast of the
intersection of Rio Vista Road and Texas State Highway 76
(known locally as North Loop Road).
Established in 1915 by the county comissioners court,
the poor farm, as it was then known, was intended to house and
care for El Paso county’s indigent and homeless residents. But
beyond its primary function as the county poor farm, Rio Vista
served a variety of ther welfare roles throughout its history,
particularly during the 1930s when the Texas Bureau initiated,
and the Works Progress Administration completed, the
construction of a 17-building camp intended to house transient
workers. Due to the dissolution of the Transient Bureau, the
camp was first used as the temporary base for Civilian
Conservation Corps unit and threafeter as shelter for hundreds
of homeless people, including entire families, during the
Great Depression. Later, in the 1950s, the camp was the
reception and processing center for the Bracero Program in
which Mexican citizens were encouraged to seek temporary labor
in the valley farms. Despite intense post-World War II
suburban development in the lower valley, Rio Vista Farm
remains completely surrounded by extensive cotton fields, thus
preserving its historic agricultural character.
John and Agnes O’Shea: 1915-1929/1959
From 1916 until it closed almost half a century
later, Rio Vista Farm was run first by John and Agnes O’Shea
and then by their daughter, Helen O’Shea Keleher. On April 16,
1916, shortly after the building was constructed, county Judge
E.B. McClintock appointed John O’Shea to operate the
approximately 208-acre county farm along with his own 640-acre
adjacent farm (El Paso Herald, January 8, 1969; El Paso
Herald, April 11, 1946). O’Shea’s wife Agnes, took charge of
the inmates. O’Shea operated the county farm from his
appointment until his death, January 8, 1929.
Following her husband’s death, Mrs. O’Shea assumed
the operation of the county farm and sent for her married
daughter, Helen O’Shea Keheler, then living in San Antonio
with her husband, to assit her.
The Texas Transient Bureau: 1935
As the Depression deepended, more and more skilled
and unskilled laborers took to the roads and rails in an
often-fruitless search of work. By 1934, tens of thousands of
transients roamed the country looking for jobs. Wherever new
construction projects were announced, hundreds of transient
workers appeared seeking employment, despite the standard
convention of hiring local people first. Urban and
transportation centers attracted large numbers of unemployed
transients but such communities were unable to provide much
assistance.
Shortly after Texas Governor Miriam Ferguson was
elected, she created the Texas Rehabilitation and Relief
Commision (March, 1933) to suerinted federal funds and
statewide relief activities. The commission established a
Transient Bureau, under the authorization of the Federal
Emergency Relief Administration, to provide shelter and
assistance to the thousands of uprooted workers who had landed
in Texas. Among the jobs approved for transient employment
were housing projects .
In March 1935, Texas Transient Bureau officials
approached the El Paso county commissioners court to request a
portion of the county poor farm for transient camp. The
proposed camp would house a minimum of 160 people. The
proposed camp would be built on an undeveloped portion of the
poor farm lying north of Rio Vista Road. Once the Transient
Bureau no longer required the use of the property, the
buildings were to be returned to the county as part of the
county farm.
Although unstated, the contract implied that the
transients were to provide both the construction and farm
labor in return for food and shelter. Unfortunately,
construction had barely begun when the Texas Transient Bureau
was discontinued. The commissioners hired architect Percy
McGhee to present a new project to the Works Progress
Administration (WPA) authorities for designation as a Works
Project. The commissioners further resolved to pay for hte
construction costs through the issuance of bonds. By obtaining
WPA approval, the county was able to feed and shelter 100
workers fo the duration of the construction project.
The Civilian Conservation Corps in the El Paso
Valley: 1936
Under War Department of regulations, the county of El
Paso was required to provide the CCC (Civilian Conservation
Corps) tent camp at Fabens. Preparations were begun to
purchase land for the camp in Fabens but county commissioners
feared the delays or the lack of facilities might jeopardize
the project. On March 9, 1935, the commissioners court granted
permission for the Camp to occupy “twelve or more buildings
and adjacent grounds as required... on property known as the
El Paso county poor farm, for the purpose of establishing a
Civilian Conservation Corps Camp... “ ( EPCCCM, Vol. 18:232).
Although Camp Rio Vista was occupied by the CCC until
August 13, 1936, the county commissioners passed a resolution
at their June 23, 1936 meeting to open the camp to hundreds of
homeless El Paso residents once it was vacated (EPCCCM, Vol.
18:418). Although not clearly documented, the restrictions
seemed to prohibit aid to alien residents i.e. Mexican
citizens, living in El Paso county. To assit the hundreds of
county residents who were ineligible for federal relief, the
county commissioners court expanded the traditional role of
the county poor farm to include indigent turebulars, destitude
families, and alien mothers with “citizen children”. In one of
the few contested issues of the county commissioners court
during this period, the resolution passed by a vote of three
to two. By this single act, the county commissioners court
greatly enlarged the role of local government to provide
welfare for its residents – whether legal or illegal, citizen
or not.
Immediately after the CCC camp moved to Fabens, Rio
Vista Farm was opened to hundreds of El Paso county’s homeless
and destitude residents. By September 1936, 300 people,
inlcuding 118 children, moved to the farm (El Paso Herald,
April 11, 1936). The commissioners court relegated the
operation of Rio Vista Farm to the City-County Hospital Board
of Managers which also assumed responsibility for hte feeding
and care of its inmates (EPCCCM Vol. 18:493). The day-to-day
operation of the farm, however, was conducted by Mrs. Agnes
O’Shea and her daughter, Helen O’Shea Keleher, who was
officially employed by the county to supervise the
newly-arrived children (El Paso Herald, April 11, 1946).
Helen O’Shea Keleher at Rio Vista Farm: 1936-1964
It was primarily through Helen Keleher’s influence,
that large numbers of children- more than 4,000 over the life
of her carrer – came to live at Rio Vista Farm. Children
quickly outnumbered the adult inmates – a dramatic change from
traditional poor farms – and thus Rio Vista Farm became more
like a large foster home than a poor farm. Nearly all the
children admitted to Rio Vista Farm during this period were of
Hispanic descent. While their mothers were often Mexican
citizens, many of their fathers were thought to have been U.S.
soldiers stationed at Fort Bliss. Mrs. Keleher assumed full
responsibility for the children, who by that time, far
outnumbered the poor farm inmates.
In fact, the children’s presence prompted the name
change to Rio Vista Farm, after the Transient Bureau
camp. Mrs. Keleher argued that the children should not have to
bear the stigma of living at the “poor farm”. She requested an
official name change and the commissioners court readly
onsented (El Paso Times, June 7, 1936). Indeed, Mrs. Keleher’s
theories about institutional living deviated greatly from
conventional poor farm wisdom. She spent the next 30 years in
the practice of her beliefs.
The Bracero Program: 1951-1964
While the inmate population at Rio Vista Farm
declined significantly in the post-war years, Rio Vista Farm
continued to serve the county in other ways. In 1948, the
United States entered into an agreement with Mexico to grant
temporary work permits to thousands of formerly illegal farm
workers in this county (El Paso Times, September 12,
1949). Known as the Bracero Program, the policy gave farmers
throught the county access to abundant, low-cost
labor. Announcements of the program precipitated a mass exodus
across the border to precessin stations were prospective
workers were given physical examinations and temporary shelter
before being trucked to farms throughout the southwest. In
1951, the former Transient Bureau camp at Rio Vista Farm
became the Bracero Reception and Processing Center for much of
West Texas and New Mexico (El Paso Times, December 31,
1964). An estimated of 80,000 Mexican farm workers were
processed through the Bracero Center at Rio Vista Farm each
year.
The Bracero Program also utilized the adobe barracks
buildings for dormitories, offices and auxiliar functions. By
that time, the few children who remained at the farm liven in
the Main House.
Rio Vista Farm Closes: 1964
Although the Bracero Program brough increased
activity to Rio Vista Farm during the 1950s and early 1960s,
the poor farm population had declined. Shortly after the
Bracero Program enden in 1964, the El Paso Heral announced the
farm’s impeding closure.
Rio Vista Farm ceased operations on December 31,
1964, ending a half-century of service to the citizens of El
Paso county. Today, the three State-owned dormitories at the
easternmost end of the complex are on loan to Texas A & M
University and are used for storage. Texas A & M continues to
operate the surroundin 190-acre cotton farm that was
originally part of the poor farm property. The Main House, a
Wash House, and the superintendent’s house, built for Mrs.
Helen Keleher about 1952, remain of hte old county poor
farm. The buildings serve the county sheriff’s department as
offices, classrooms and a police sub-station.
Throughout its different uses – as home for the aged
indigent and neglected children, a temporary CCC camp, and a
Bracero Reception Center – Rio Vista Farm has maintained its
rural character despite the extensive suburbanization of the
lower valley following World War II. Today, as the remaining
irrigated cotton fields along Norh Loop Road rapidly give away
to residential subdivisions and commercial development, Rio
Vista Farm is one of the last intact remmants of the lower
valley’s agricultural past. It also contains what may be the
largest collection of pre-1945 builidings associated with
early 20th century social welfare programs in the
Lower El Paso Valley.
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