Corralitos Ranch

Corralitos Ranch, also known as San Jose de los Corralitos, preserves the oldest documented structure surviving from the Spanish colonial period in the lower Rio Grande region. The one-room, windowless sandstone fortaleza was built as a fortified refuge for ranch settlers during raids, its exterior and parapet pierced by numerous troneras (gunports); a larger two-room fortified building erected about 1870 stands roughly 150 feet away, lacking gunports because the raiding threat had by then diminished. Located a few miles upriver from San Ygnacio off U.S. Highway 83, the site was accurately rehabilitated in 2006 by conservator Frank Briscoe Jr., who replicated the original hand-hewn wooden beams and fireproof chipichil roof. The ranch is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sources: nps.govsah-archipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org