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Wednesday, June 25, 1997

Border dwellers remember shady past of Mexican village

By FERNANDO DEL VALLE / Valley Morning Star

MERCEDES, Texas - As Guillermo Trevino squints his eyes at a tiny village across the Rio Grande, the ghosts of rum runners, dance hall girls and gunfighters fill his memory.

Visions of Rio Rico, the small Mexican town dubbed "Sin City" that the mob bought during the era of Prohibition, came to Trevino like a mirage as he pumped irrigation water near the banks of the Rio Grande.

"I remember it like a dream, but I remember," the 65-year-old Trevino said in Spanish as he wiped sweat from his brow.

About two miles down dusty Rio Rico Road, the banks of the Rio Grande are dotted with a handful of small homes where employees of the local irrigation district live.

Trevino, who works for a local farmer, thought back to a time when he was a young boy carrying milk to his grandparents, who lived near Rio Rico.

He still remembers the ferry that carried visitors across the river.

"There were a lot of bars and a lot of business," Trevino grinned. "There were women in all the bars. If they were prostitutes, they were very discreet. But they had their rooms in the bars."

All that vanished after the Progreso bridge was built in the early 1950s, taking the town's business with it, Trevino recalled.

From across the banks of the Rio Grande, a church's steeple juts from a distant row of trees. It's the center of the small farming village that Regino Ramos once visited near the site of the ruins of Rio Rico.

Like others in the tiny community of irrigation district employees, Ramos had only heard stories of the town that residents and local historians say had been developed by the mob as an adult playground and resort.

"There were a lot of people involved in illegal activity there," said Ramos, 56, an employee of Hidalgo and Cameron County Irrigation District No. 9.

The tiny village that stands today near the ruins of Rio Rico bears an ugly stigma, said Ramos, whose home is located closest to the riverbank.

"Years ago I went there and the people were very bad - the police in Mexico are pretty bad," Ramos said, without offering details.

Alongside Ramos' home, a small flock of sheep grazed beneath the dense brush of a hill.

Chickens scattered across a dusty field as Martha Mata stood at her screen door.

Like Ramos, the 38-year-old housewife had only heard tales of the old town across the river.

"I just heard that Al Capone had something to do with it," said Mrs. Mata, whose husband Mario works as a supervisor at the irrigation district.

At the edge of a canal near Rio Rico Road, Trevino smiled as he talked about highway bandits who roamed the outskirts of the town.

"I remember my uncle liked the pistol," Trevino said, explaining that the gun was for protection from bandits who lived near his home. "He wouldn't let anybody boss him around."

The town was so tough that soldiers were called in to the area along the river, Trevino said.

"They used to bring in the Army because people were scared," he said.

Trevino slipped off his worn straw hat to wipe his brow as his eyes squinted into the distance.

"Now there isn't anything," he said. "The town is dead."

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