OLMOS, TEXAS (Maverick County). Olmos was on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad two miles east of U.S. Highway 277 and six miles northeast of Eagle Pass in west central Maverick County. It was probably named after the Olmos Formation Belt, a coal outcropping about four miles wide, upon which the Olmos mining operation was situated. Between 1903 and 1907 the Olmos Coal, Coke, and Oil Company, owned and operated by Pasquale and Rocco DeBona of Eagle Pass, opened a mining concern near the Olmos siding of the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. By 1910 laborers at the Olmos mine, also known as the Lamar mine, were extracting 1,200 tons of coal daily. A small community developed around the mining operation; residences were described as "small red houses for the laborers." By the mid-1920s the mines at Olmos had closed. In 1946 the community consisted of the railroad siding, a group dwelling, and a couple of single-family residences. By 1974 the site had been abandoned.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eagle Pass Daily Guide, Jubilee Centennial Edition, July 2, 1936. Ben E. Pingenot, Historical Highlights of Eagle Pass and Maverick County (Eagle Pass, Texas: Eagle Pass Chamber of Commerce, 1971). Marker Files, Texas Historical Commission, Austin.

Ruben E. Ochoa