Editing Rocksprings, Texas (section)

==History==
J. R. Sweeten sited Rocksprings in 1891 because of the springs nearby. Also in 1891, the town acquired a [[post office]] and was made county seat. The original [[courthouse]] built in the town burned in 1897. By 1914, Rocksprings had a population around 500.

During the early 1900s, hostilities between Anglos and Mexicans along the "Brown Belt" were common.  In Rocksprings, Antonio Rodriguez, a twenty-year-old Mexican, was [[burned at the stake]] by a white mob for allegedly killing a white woman, Effie Greer Henderson.  This event was widely publicized and protests against the treatment of Mexicans in the U.S. erupted within the interior of Mexico, namely in Guadalajara and Mexico City.<ref>Rosales, Francisco A. ''Chicano!: The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement''. Arte Publico Press, 1997. pp 29.</ref><ref name="Minutaglio">{{cite book |last=Minutaglio |first=Bill |author-link=Bill Minutaglio |date=2021 |title=A Single Star and Bloody Knuckles: A History of Politics and Race in Texas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lYcHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA87 |publisher=University of Texas Press |page=87 |isbn=9781477310366}}</ref> This was part of a series of racist killings known as ''[[La Matanza (1910–1920)|La Matanza]]''.

On April 12, 1927, the town was hit by an [[Fujita scale|F5]] [[tornado]] that destroyed 235 of the 247 buildings in the town. The tornado killed 74 townspeople and injured 205, almost a third of the population at the time.<ref>Cox, Mike. ''Texas Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival''. Globe Pequot Press, Sep. 2006. pp 99-108.</ref>