Brownsville Station: When Rats Owned the Night: Downtown Brownsville’s Long War (1940

When Rats Owned the Night: Downtown Brownsville’s Long War (1940–1967)

J.P. Stillwater

In the spring of 1940, Brownsville declared war.

Not on a foreign enemy — but on rats.

Across the front pages of the Brownsville Herald and the Valley Evening Monitor, headlines shouted:

“Brownsville Starts War On Rodents”
“Rat Campaign Support Urged”
“Brownsville Rat Campaign Set March 27”
“War On Rats Here Right On Schedule”

The language was deliberate. This was a war. And it centered not just on alleys and riverbanks — but on downtown itself.

The 33,000-Rat Problem

City officials estimated there were 33,000 rats in Brownsville in 1940 — “each a potential carrier of typhus fever.”

The campaign was coordinated with the U.S. Biological Survey. City employees, firemen, health workers, and even Boy Scouts were mobilized to canvass every business and residence. Orders for red squill poison bait were taken at City Hall, schools, fire stations, and the Chamber of Commerce.

The poison cost 30–35 cents per package.

Participation was framed as civic duty.

The stated objectives were threefold:

Prevent the spread of typhus transmitted by fleas.
Eradicate Brownsville’s enormous rat population.
Save families money — each rat was estimated to cost households $2 per year in damage.

The tone of the coverage was urgent, almost apocalyptic. Officials referenced bubonic plague as a possible danger to port cities. Typhus cases in the Valley had reached into the hundreds the previous year.

This was not presented as nuisance control.
It was public health defense.

Downtown Conditions: The Unspoken Context

The newspapers rarely described conditions in graphic detail, but interviews conducted decades later for local theater histories fill in the atmosphere.

Former projectionists, ushers, and patrons consistently mentioned:

Rats running along balcony railings
Scratching inside theater walls
Movement behind curtains
Occasional sightings near concession stands

In older downtown buildings — especially theaters built in the 1910s and 1920s — structural gaps, wooden framing, and food waste created ideal conditions.

Backstage areas were particularly vulnerable:

Stored costumes
Wooden set flats
Dark catwalks
Limited ventilation
Adjacent alley dumpsters

When evening crowds left and lights dimmed, downtown became a different ecosystem.

Theaters as Vulnerable Nodes

Brownsville’s historic downtown theaters — including venues such as the Capitol, Queen, and later neighborhood houses — operated in an era before modern pest control standards.

Consider the context:

Air conditioning was not widespread until later decades.
Buildings were not tightly sealed.
Alleyways behind theaters often contained restaurant waste.
Produce markets and feed stores operated nearby.
The Rio Grande and rail lines were natural rat corridors.

Theaters were warm, dark, and supplied with food debris.

From a rat’s perspective, it was prime real estate.

1948: The Problem Persists

By 1948, headlines again referenced rodent control measures. The war had not been permanently won.

Campaigns were repeated because infestations returned.

Urban ecology does not surrender easily.

Rats reproduce quickly.
Downtown commerce produces waste.
Climate favors survival.

Each eradication drive reduced numbers — temporarily.

1967: Still in the Headlines

Even as late as 1967, rat control stories reappeared in Valley papers. Public health departments continued coordinated efforts. The language softened compared to 1940’s war rhetoric, but the problem endured.

By then:

Some downtown theaters were declining.
Maintenance budgets shrank.
Buildings aged.
Sealing and sanitation standards improved slowly.

Interviewees from this era often described seeing rats less frequently in the audience areas — but still common in alleys and storage rooms.

Why Downtown Was Especially Vulnerable

Several structural factors made downtown Brownsville uniquely prone to infestation in the mid-20th century:

1. Border Commerce

Constant freight movement across the river and rail lines provided rodent transit routes.

2. Produce and Grain Traffic

Warehouses and feed stores attracted rodents.

3. Dense Block Construction

Shared walls allowed rats to travel between buildings unseen.

4. Climate

Warm temperatures allowed year-round breeding.

5. Limited Waste Infrastructure

Garbage containment practices were inconsistent prior to modern regulation.

Memory vs. Records

The newspapers framed the issue as a public health crisis.

Oral histories frame it as everyday reality.

Neither contradicts the other.

The 1940 campaign was a coordinated attempt to confront something residents already knew: rats were not occasional visitors. They were part of downtown’s nightly rhythm.

In interviews, older Brownsvillians rarely expressed shock about seeing rats in theaters. It was more often described with a shrug — unpleasant but unsurprising.

That normalization tells us something powerful about mid-century urban life.

The War That Never Fully Ended

Brownsville’s “war on rats” was not a single battle in March 1940. It was cyclical.

1940: Large-scale mobilization.
1948: Renewed control efforts.
1960s: Continued public health interventions.

Each generation fought its own version of the problem.

And yet downtown survived.

Theaters operated.
Audiences attended matinees.
Stage curtains rose.
Children bought popcorn.

Behind the glamour, behind the neon marquees, behind the orchestra pit — there was a parallel city moving in the dark.

A Different Way to See Downtown History

When we talk about historic theaters, we focus on architecture, film premieres, vaudeville acts, and community gatherings.

But urban history also lives in:

Sanitation drives
Public health campaigns
Insect and rodent control
The infrastructure beneath the romance

The rat headlines of 1940 are not embarrassing footnotes.

They are evidence of a city grappling seriously with modernization, disease prevention, and civic responsibility.

Brownsville’s downtown was not decaying — it was evolving.

And part of that evolution required confronting what lived in the walls.

Sunday, February 15, 2026