Roma

Manuel Guerra, banker, rancher, and Democratic leader in Starr County politics, the son of Jes?s Guerra Barrera, was born in Mier, Tamaulipas, in 1856. The claims of the Guerra family to land in South Texas originated in 1767, when Jos? Alejandro Guerra secured two Spanish land grants that straddled the Rio Grande. Unlike many Hispanic families with property north of the border, the Guerras did not lose their land to aggressive Anglo ranchers and speculators. In fact, the Guerras' business enterprises and ranch holdings grew in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After living in Mier and Corpus Christi, in 1877 Manuel Guerra settled in Roma, Texas, where he launched his successful career in business and ranching and married Virginia Cox. In 1894 he won a seat on the Starr County Commissioners Court and formed an alliance with Sheriff W. W. Shely that dominated county politics until Shely became incapacitated with a nervous disorder in 1905. For the next decade Guerra ruled as the political boss of Starr County.