Old Casa Blanca, which is several miles from the railroad switch by that name, stands on the Nueces River in what is now Jim Wells, but was once a part of Nueces County. “Of the history of this old ruin,” says Mrs. Sutherland, “no one knows a word.” The record of it is preserved in legend alone, and of legends there are many. Mrs. Sutherland links the place with a certain supposed silver mine and recalls a tale of “a find” made there in 1868.

In its past, Casa Blanca was both Spanish fort and mission. So runs the legend told by Mr. E. M. Dubose. After the priests left it, it was occupied by a Mexican sheepman who prospered greatly. At last he sold off his sheep and land for cash, but remained for a while at Casa Blanca to wind up his affairs. The fact that he had thousands of dollars, and that he kept them within the walls of the building, was, according to Dubose, confirmed by a man named Reems, who had once lived in Pearsall. Reems stayed with the old sheepman three or four days just before the latter was killed and got a hint as to the location of the money. After the murder, Reems returned to Casa Blanca and found a worn hole in the very spot he had figured out to be the hiding place.

Not long after it became known that the sheepman had converted his property into cash, some Mexicans captured him and tortured him until he told where the money was, after which they put him to death. At this point they discovered that they were themselves being watched by a second band of robbers. Under cover of night they hid their booty in a kind of rock pen near the fort, throwing the body of the murdered sheepman on top of it. They spent the night under the protection of the walls, hoping to fight their way out in the morning.

The battle began at daybreak. The besiegers greatly outnumbered the besieged, and in desperation the latter scattered into the brush. There one of them, named Carbal, was cut off, and as he fell from a mortal shot he saw his own younger brother bend over him. It was the brother whom, years before, he had taught the first lessons of outlaw life; and now that brother, in ironic ignorance, had repaid the lesson. Carbal understood the ignorance, and with his dying words told where the loot was hidden. Even as he spoke, the last of his companions was killed.

But the victorious desperadoes were never to reap the golden harvest of their victory. In the fight they had suffered losses, and now upon their heels came the terrible Texas Rangers. Retreating toward the Rio Grande, they were all “naturalized” on Texas soil except one or two who managed to reach the safety of Mexico. From that one or two, in confused form, has come down to us the story of the rich sheepman, his lost money, and the blood spilled over it. Ed Dubose got the story, together with a chart, from an old Mexican whom he made drunk on tequila. Later he tried to find the “kind of rock pen” near Casa Blanca, but could locate no trace of it.