Santa Rita, Texas is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

near Brownsville in Cameron County, Texas, 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 Bro ...

, 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, 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