Crystal City, Texas Crystal City, Texas City and governmental center of county Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Crystal City Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Crystal City Location of Crystal City, Texas Location of Crystal City, Texas Crystal City is a town/city in and the governmental center of county of Zavala County, Texas, United States. The populace was 7,138 at the 2010 census.

Spinach became a primary crop and the town/city has promoted itself as "Spinach Capital of the World." A view of downtown Crystal City Crystal City was originally settled by American farmers and ranchers producing cattle and various crops.

Crystal City was a primary stop along with San Antonio, Uvalde, Carrizo Springs, and Corpus Christi on the defunct San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf Railroad, which directed from 1909 until it was consolidated into the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1956.

From 1909 to 1912, the SAU&G was known as the Crystal City and Uvalde Railroad.

Main article: Crystal City Internment Camp During World War II, Crystal City was home to the biggest of the World War II internment camps, having homed American civilians of German, Japanese, and Italian ancestry.

Highway 83 in Crystal City With the stream of refugees fleeing the Mexican Revolution of 1910, and later added to by Mexican migrant workers flourishing by the small-town spinach industry, the demographics of the small non-urban city began to shift over the years since its 1910 incorporation, due to its adjacency to the U.S./Mexico border.

By 1963, Crystal City experienced a theme Mexican American electoral victory, as the swiftly emerging Mexican American majority propel fellow Mexican American to the town/city council, led by Juan Cornejo, a small-town representative of the Teamsters Union at the Del Monte cannery in Crystal City. The newly propel all Mexican American town/city council, and the succeeding administration, had trouble governing the town/city because of political factions among the new officials.

His quest for control of the town/city government eventually led to his loss of political support.

Although these five propel officials known as "Los Cinco" only held office for two years, many consider this moment the "spark" or starting point of what became known as the Chicano Movement. A new group made up of both Anglos and Mexican Americans, the Citizens Association Serving All Americans, announced its plans to run candidates for countywide offices in 1964, and won. By the late 1960s, Crystal City would turn into the locale of continued activism in the civil rights boss among its Mexican American majority population, and the place of birth of the third party political boss known as La Raza Unida Party established by three Chicanos, including Jose Angel Gutierrez over a conflict about the ethnicity of cheerleaders at Crystal City High School.

La Raza Unida, and related organizations, then won election to most offices in Crystal City and Zavala County in the periods between 1969 and 1980, when the party declined at the small-town level. In the 1970s, following protests of charges (essentially non-payment of services) on the part of La Raza Unida, Crystal City's natural gas supply was shut off by its only supplier.

Crystal City inhabitants were forced to resort to mostly wood burning stoves and individual propane gas tanks for cooking.

To this day, there is no natural gas supplier in the Crystal City area, although most inhabitants purchase propane from the city. Zavala County Bank in Crystal City In 1976, eleven officials in Crystal City were indicted on various counts.

Angel Noe Gonzalez, the former Crystal City Independent School District superintendent who later worked in the United States Department of Education in Washington, D.C., upon his indictment retained the San Antonio lawyer and later mayor, Phil Hardberger.

In February 2016, almost every top official of the town/city was arrested under a federal indictment accusing them of taking bribes from contractors and providing town/city workers to assist an illegal gambling operator, Ngoc Tri Nguyen.

A week earlier Lopez was taken into custody for assault and disorderly conduct amid a town/city council meeting in which a recall election to remove himself and two other town/city council members was discussed.

According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 3.6 square miles (9.4 km ), all of it land.

Major bodies of water near Crystal City include the Nueces River and Averhoff Reservoir.

As of the census of 2000, there were 7,190 citizens , 2,183 homeholds, and 1,781 families residing in the city.

The ethnic makeup of the town/city was 67.96% White, 0.67% African American, 0.39% Native American, 0.10% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 28.33% from other competitions, and 2.50% from two or more competitions.

In the city, the populace was spread out with 34.9% under the age of 18, 9.6% from 18 to 24, 24.2% from 25 to 44, 18.7% from 45 to 64, and 12.6% who were 65 years of age or older.

The Crystal City Correctional Center, a private prison, was previously one of the biggest employers in the Crystal City region when it homed prisoners from a range of jurisdictions, including federal prisoners.

South of Crystal City on U.S.

Crystal City Correctional Center The Southwest Texas Junior College branch in Crystal City Crystal City is served by the Crystal City Independent School District.

"Sailors in Limestone: The Crystal City Statue That Might've Been".

Thompson, Jonathan (January 3, 2008), "Contextualizing Radical Planning: The 1970s Chicano Takeover in Crystal City, Texas", Progressive Planning Magazine (Winter 2008 ed.), retrieved 22 June 2016 "CRYSTAL CITY REVOLTS".

"CRYSTAL CITY, TX".

Federal Corruption Case Snares Leaders of South Texas City; ABC News; February 4, 2016.

Almost every top official in Texas town/city arrested in federal corruption case; Fox News; February 5, 2016.

Russell, Jan Jarboe (2015), The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange and America's Only Family Internment Camp amid World War II, Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press.

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Categories:
Cities in Texas - Cities in Zavala County, Texas - County seats in Texas