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Marker Location
Photographers Notes:
"For nearly eighty years, the Texas Historical Commission has
had the gray granite 1936 Centennial marker for Poblacion de Dolores
inventoried in the wrong county. It is listed to be in Webb
County rather than in adjacent Zapata
County. After my visit to the marker next to the ruins of Mission
Dolores a Visita, it is my observation from maps, satellite
images and other historical references, that this particular marker
was actually placed, back in 1936, more than two miles from its
intended location. The Mission
Dolores a Visita has its own, more conveniently located, Centennial
Marker on nearby US Highway 83.
A misplaced 1936 Centennial marker is not unheard of given the primitive
mechanical means to transport a 1,500+ pound slab of granite to
a very remote part of the state, along with possibly incomplete
road and trail directions, and the lack of power-assisted equipment.
Local weather conditions at the time of delivery and even the political
climate could contribute to the convenient placement of the granite
monument rather than its correct placement. All this plus the possibility
of the confusion of the names, Poblacion de Dolores vs Dolores
a Visita. Once the marker was set in place, who would to tell?
These are just my thoughts, 78 years after the fact." - Barclay
Gibson, July 2014
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