Santa Rita, Texas is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...

near Brownsville in

Cameron County, Texas Cameron County, officially the County of Cameron, is the southernmost county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 421,017. Its county seat is Brownsville. The county was founded in 1848 and is named for Capt ...

, United States. It is believed to have been the first government seat in the county in 1848, and perhaps the earliest town to have been named by English-speaking people from the area. Around the late 18th century, this area was a ranching community, even before the city of

Matamoros, Tamaulipas Matamoros, officially known as Heroica Matamoros, is a city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, and the municipal seat of the homonymous municipality. It is on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, directly across the border from Br ...

, was established in 1826. When Brownsville was finally elected as the county seat a few months later, most of the residents from Santa Rita moved to the winning townsite. By the late 1930s, nothing remained in Santa Rita. Today, Santa Rita is found near the ''colonia'' of Villa Nueva ( San Pedro), a historical site in the

Rio Grande Valley The Lower Rio Grande Valley ( es, Valle del Río Grande), commonly known as the Rio Grande Valley or locally as the Valley or RGV, is a region spanning the border of Texas and Mexico located in a floodplain of the Rio Grande near its mouth. The ...

, northwest of the city of Brownsville.

References

{{coord, 25, 58, 46, N, 97, 35, 56, W, type:city_region:US-TX_source:GNIS-enwiki, display=title Ghost towns in South Texas Geography of Cameron County, Texas