Laredo

Laredo, a city and the county-seat of Webb county, Texas, U.S.A., and a sub-port of entry, on the Rio Grande opposite Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and 150 m. S. of San Antonio. Pop. (1900) 13,429, of whom 6882 were foreign-born (mostly Mexicans) and 82 negroes; (1910 census) 14,855. It is served by the International & Great Northern, the National of Mexico, the Texas Mexican and the Rio Grande & Eagle Pass railways, and is connected by bridges with Nuevo Laredo. Among the principal buildings are the U.S. Government Building, the City Hall and the County Court House; and the city’s institutions include the Laredo Seminary (1882) for boys and girls, the Mercy Hospital, the National Railroad of Mexico Hospital and an Ursuline Convent. Loma Vista Park (65 acres) is a pleasure resort, and immediately W. of Laredo on the Rio Grande is Fort McIntosh (formerly Camp Crawford), a United States military post. Laredo is a jobbing centre for trade between the United States and Mexico, and is a sub-port of entry in the Corpus Christi Customs District. It is situated in a good farming and cattle-raising region, irrigated by water from the Rio Grande. The principal crop is Bermuda onions; in 1909 it was estimated that 1500 acres in the vicinity were devoted to this crop, the average yield per acre being about 20,000 ℔. There are coal mines about 25 m. above Laredo on the Rio Grande, and natural gas was discovered about 28 m. E. in 1908. The manufacture of bricks is an important industry. Laredo was named from the seaport in Spain, and was founded in 1767 as a Mexican town; it originally included what is now Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and was long the only Mexican town on the left bank of the river. It was captured in 1846 by a force of Texas Rangers, and in 1847 was occupied by U.S. troops under General Lamar. In 1852 it was chartered as a city of Texas.