GARCÍA, NEMESIO (?-1904). Nemesio García was a native of Lampazos, Nuevo León, Mexico. He was well known in the border region as a committed liberal and opponent of Mexico's President Porfirio Díaz. He founded the first Mexican Masonic Lodge in Texas, La Logia "Benito Juárez" of Laredo. He was married to Juana Naranjo and was the father of journalist Nemesio García Naranjo.^qv With his family, García fled from Mexico to Laredo, Texas, in the beginning of 1886, after he uncovered a plan by the military to assassinate Díaz opponents in Lampazos. In addition to being a professional pharmacist, García had business and cattle interests in Mexico. He achieved the rank of venerable master of the Scottish Rite Masons and was also an honorary member of the Sociedad Mutualista "Hijos de Juárez" of Laredo. He died after a brain stroke on November 20, 1904, and was eulogized by some of the most prominent men of Laredo, including Nicasio Idar,^qv the editor of La Crónica^qv and Juan E. Richter, a successful businessman.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: El Demócrata Fronterizo, November 26, 1904. Elliott Young, "Deconstructing La Raza: Identifying the Gente Decente of Laredo, 1904-1911," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 98 (October 1994). Emilio Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993).

Elliott Young