Río Rico, Tamaulipas facts for kids
Río Rico is a village located along the Rio Grande in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. It includes a portion of the Horcón Tract, a narrow 461-acre (1.87 km2) piece of land (including former riverbed) that was north of the meandering river—and thus part of the U.S. state of Texas—until an unauthorized diversion of the river to its north cut it off from the rest of the state in 1906. Río Rico developed as a de facto Mexican settlement, and the international border was moved under the terms of the Boundary Treaty of 1970, placing the tract and the village in Mexico, effective in 1977.
History
In 1906, the Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company performed an unauthorized diversion of the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte), which moved a 413-acre (1.67 km2) tract of land, including Rio Rico, south of the river. The company was later fined, but the diversion of the river was allowed to stand if the company placed boundary markers, which it never did.
The land was now physically south of the Rio Grande—the border between Mexico and the U.S. since 1845—and Mexican authorities unknowingly assumed control of the area, which became known as the Horcón Tract. However, since the course change was due to man-made changes and not natural changes, international law dictated that the land remained US territory, a fact that was not in dispute. Something of a resort town grew up there during the 1920s and 1930s, with free-flowing liquor and gambling.
The U.S. eventually ceded the territory to Mexico with the Boundary Treaty of 1970, and it was formally annexed by the state of Tamaulipas. The handover took place in 1977. After one local resident filed a lawsuit to prevent the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service from deporting him, the US courts ruled that all residents born in the city prior to 1972 could retain their US citizenship. The ruling almost emptied the city of residents as they were now able to move to other areas of the United States as full citizens.
See also
In Spanish: Río Rico (Tamaulipas) para niños
