Original and current site of the Fonseca Ranch
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This is where the original Fonseca Family ranch is located. On the North side of FM 188, you see the ranch of Ramon Fonseca and on the Northwest corner of the intersection of FM 181 and CR 23 (FM 1541), you see the ranch left to the children of Angela DeLeon.
Some family history
The first home constructed on the Fonseca Ranch was
a jacal. The jacal is a folk structure which is built out of
natural, locally-found material. People did not have easy
access to construction materials such as being able to go
shopping at a lumber yard or Home Depot as we do today.
So examples of material used to construct the jacal in South
Texas included mud, clay, adobe, mesquite wood, river grass,
cane, and stones.
Originally imported to Texas from Central Mexico, the jacal
was in widespread use in Texas during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Actual use of the jacal diminished
quickly due to changes in the natural environment material,
life of Texans, and the negative social value attached to
the structure.
In other words, as the original family size grew, so did their
ability to construct nicer shelters. Ramon Fonseca and Carmen
Armesto related this oral history to their children. Carmen
said that the original jacal of the Jose Fonseca family
was built with a nicer dirt floor than what you found outside
but it was still hard to keep clean. As the family grew, the
jacal shelter quickly became too small for their needs. Ramon
reinforced Carmen's story that the kitchen was small, but no one
could agree on how much bigger to build the kitchen, so instead
they built a clapboard home and the little jacal was used as
an extra shelter/shed. Eventually the jacal was swept away by
a severe, torrential storm.
After the death of her husband, General Alvaran, Chucha remarried.
Her and her husband, Vivanio Salazar, built a clapboard home.
Sofia also remarried after the death of her husband, Capitan
Flores. She married Juan DeLeon, who was her younger sister's
brother-in-law, but they sold their share of the property to
the remaining siblings. Angela had married Lucio DeLeon and
they built their home in the most Southeast corner of the ranch.
Florentino and Herminia lived in their own shelter, and Jose's
family kept building a bigger home as the family grew.