GARCEÑO, TEXAS. Garceño is on U.S. Highway 83 five miles east of Roma and eight miles west of Rio Grande City in south central Starr County. It was probably named for an early settler. The community lies within the boundaries of a Spanish land grant north of the Rio Grande to Nicolás de los Santos Coy, an affluent rancher from Camargo, Nuevo Santander,^qv in the mid-eighteenth century. Santos Coy established two large ranches on his grant, one of which, Guardado, later became Garceño. The village had fifty residents and a store in 1940. Garceño was a supply and cotton-shipping point for Spanish-speaking ranchers until the coming of the highways in the early twentieth century. The completion of the four-lane highway between Roma and Rio Grande City led to the establishment of nearly a dozen stores at the intersection of Highway 83 and Farm Road 649. In 1990–91 the population was 1,500, and in 2000 it was 1,438.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Agnes G. Grimm, Llanos Mesteñas: Mustang Plains (Waco: Texian Press, 1968). Florence J. Scott, Historical Heritage of the Lower Rio Grande (San Antonio: Naylor, 1937; rev. ed., Waco: Texian, 1966; rpt., Rio Grande City, Texas: La Retama Press, 1970). J. Lee and Lillian J. Stambaugh, The Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas (San Antonio: Naylor, 1954). Valley By-Liners, Gift of the Rio (Mission, Texas: Border Kingdom Press, 1975).

Dick D. Heller, Jr.