2016 Charro Days Saturday Parade

It brings me pleasure once again to post these photos of yet another yearly parade and this time we have more classic cars and plenty of familiar historic buildings.

Classic Cadillac convertible and no - I am not going to identify car years and buildings in the background but I will try to name some people in the photos but you can read the name in most of them probably.

Every parade begins with a proud display of our two national flags on this border with Charros and dancing horses and costumes.

 110th Secretary of State of Texas Carlos Cascos 

Floats of two nations in one parade.  There were many beautiful floats but since I'm not a photographer I just tried to choose a few of the best photos.  The light was not perfect but the weather and breeze was.  I walked from 3rd St to Palm, back to 10th St on one side, then back to 3rd without breaking a sweat.  God is great.  

The Texas State Senate: District 27. Senator Eddie Lucio, Jr and  Representative Eddie Lucio III District 38

in a late 60's Ford Galaxy 500

 City of Brownsville Commissioner Rose Gowan in a classic Mustang

 City of Brownsville Commissioner Cesar de Leon

 Okay I know we got the Lucios already but that's a awesome car and historic house behind this photo.  

I met an interesting person from China who was dressed in this traditional wear from her home country which she kindly tried to explain represented her ethnic group, one of 55 or 59 I think she said.  Our guess is that she is from the northern region or Mongolian section of that extremely large continent.  If anyone knows for sure let us know!  I should have taken notes but really, to see costume dress like this is a real treat in Brownsville so here she is.

Now I had to take a photo of the Charro Days Headquarters building and luckily these two Charro Days representatives agreed to allow us this photo.

 It was nice to see carriages in this parade.

 I didn't take too many photos from this angle.  Too high....

 I went to Texas Southmost College but the Scorpion looks more badass now.  No, I didn't learn to speak or write like that in college.

 City of Brownsville 

 Padre Island is where you're thinking you would take this if you could or was that just me?

 50 year old Mustang looking green as money

Marching like army soldiers of old Brownsville down E Elizabeth toward the Fort.

I remember thinking "Did they really make those globes on the old street lamps look yellowish to give them an authentic look"?  Public Utilities Board (P.U.B.) lights the city of Brownsville, Texas.

Here are some of the folks that put this together each year with a few sponsors listed.  This parade went so much better then the last which was slowed by too many gaps.  This time it flowed much more continuously and smoothly.  They do this all for you.  

Ruenes Family Theater Circuit

Compiled by Javier R. Garcia with
history and photos provided by by Ricardo Ruenes

 The first theater built by the Ramon and Esther Ruenes was the Juarez in San Benito built in the 1920's on the northeast corner of Hidalgo and Landrum Streets.  The first films shown here were silent movies using a hand cranked movie projector like the example below.  

1920s era hand cranked 35mm film movie projector

Don Ramon Ruenes immigrated to the United States of America from Asturias, Spain in 1902 and married Esther Trevino Ramirez at the age of 21 in 1910.  They had four children:  Esther, Paquita, Ramon II and Christina who also grew up to help operate and expand the theater business.  Don Ramon hand-cranked the movie projector while Esther played piano music while film was running.  Stage performances also drew crowds in the 200-seat theater built out of wood and this idea eventually evolved as the "Noche de Aficionados (Amateur Night)" program where people could competitively entertain audiences for prizes.

Ramon and Esther pioneered family entertainment for Spanish speaking audiences in south Texas but their dream was interrupted in 1940 when Ramon died.  Esther continued operating the theater and had to find a way to build the Ruenes Theater during World War II in spite of the mandatory rationing of valuable resources for the war effort.  That meant auto production and building construction was halted and factories shifted from manufacture of civilian products to military material.  

Ramon Ruenes in front of the Juarez Theater

Ramon II was in service to the U.S. Army at the time Esther went to Rio Grande City to oversee the dismantling of an old theater brick-by-brick which was delivered to 567 Sam Robertson in San Benito and was twice the size of the Juarez Theater which had closed a month earlier to the completion of the Juarez in 1942.

1950 San Antonio newspaper clipping

The Ruenes chain of theaters continued expanding.  Ramon II owned the Teatro Victoria and Ruenes Drive-In Theater  (hereafter "DI") in Brownsville, Texas.   Later he owned the Loop 13 and Kelly DI in San Antonio and Paquita Canas owned the Azteca Theater in Harlingen, Rex Theater in Rio Hondo and Roxy Theater in Port Isabel.  Paquita and her mother also built the Juarez DI between San Benito and Harlingen in 1962.  The eldest, Esther, owned the Gulf DI in Corpus Christi.  Upon her retirement her son Eduardo acquired the El Rey Theater and Valley DI and Buckhorn DI's in Mission.  Youngest daughter Christina "Tina" helped Esther run her theaters and married Phillip Brady who also came from a pioneering theater family begun by his father Tom Brady in the Rio Grande Valley.

Ramon and Viola married on New Year's Eve 1941.  They had four children:  Ramon III, Mary Esther, Larry and Ricardo, who who continue running the business after Ramon II passed on in 1985.  The era of Ramon and Viola is what Spanish-Language theater historian and local expert Rogelio Agrasanchez refers to as the "Golden Age of Mexican Cinema."  This star studded era will be revisited on a future post on Bronsbil Estacion with photos of the Victoria and Ruenes DI.

In 1946 Ramon Ruenes II built the Teatro Victoria at a cost of $90,000 with a 6,000 square foot auditorium to seat 950 people with help from brother-in-law Ed F. Brady upon returning from the war and later turned the Fiesta DI into the Ruenes DI in 1965.  It had a baby parlor for mothers to sit with crying children.  The Majestic built in 1949 also had a "crying room."

Ruenes Theater Circuit business card

Ricardo saw the era come to an end with the advent of shopping mall multi-screen theaters, cable television, BETA and VHS explosion in the market and tele-novela serials becoming popular in the 1980's which kept viewers glued to television each evening but in the end it was the Teatro Victoria and Ruenes DI that outlasted all theaters and drive-ins in Brownsville, Texas.  We'll post more history of that era with stories and photos in a future post.