Presidio County eyes control of international bridge

The crossing between Texas and Mexico is one of the few managed by the state.

By Michael MarksOctober 4, 2024 2:22 pm,

The Presidio International Bridge spans a rural section of the Rio Grande, connecting Ojinaga, Mexico to Presidio, Texas. It’s not a huge operation, compared to some border crossings – just one lane going to Mexico, and another into Texas.

Currently, the State of Texas operates the American side of the crossing, but that could soon change. The Presidio County Commissioners Court recently decided to ask the state to transfer ownership of the bridge to the county. But doing so promises to be complicated.

Sam Karas, reporter for the Big Bend Sentinel, spoke to the Texas Standard about the proposed transfer.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: First, can you briefly explain this arrangement between the State of Texas and Presidio County as it relates to this international bridge?

Sam Karas: It’s kind of an unusual one where throughout Texas and most of the Southwest, all of these international bridges that see a lot of trade are owned either by a special taxing entity or by the city or the county that they’re located in. And ours is owned by the state of Texas.

So in some ways that’s great because they foot the bill for all kinds of different stuff and oversee the maintenance and construction of the bridge. But in other ways, that can be kind of frustrating, because they’re all the way in Austin and we’re all the way out in the Big Bend.

Well, why are county commissioners so keen to take control of it?

Well, this has been an issue for almost 70 years now. But essentially what they want is to be able to have a say in how the bridge is operated. A lot of that has to do with the federal government, obviously, and Customs and Border Protection.

But the day-to-day kind of deciding when to do construction projects and how to promote the bridge and how it should operate on a day-to-day basis, they’d like more say in that so that they can undertake projects that would allow the bridge to expand and to grow our trade.

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You know the saying “watch out what you ask for” – I would imagine there are some pretty big costs associated with maintaining an international bridge like this. Are people concerned about that?

Yes. They’re kind of asking for folks to have a little faith in the process, because on the one hand, yes, Presidio County is one of the poorest counties in Texas. But they’re hoping they’re seeing the vision of other cities and counties like Laredo, which used to be one of the poorest cities in Texas, and now their bridge crosses in one day what we cross in 14 months.

They don’t want us to become Laredo. They don’t want us to become huge and super, super busy, but they would like us to see busier. And so they’re hoping by putting in a little bit of money that we don’t have up front, that someday we could have a piece of that pie.

I understand there’s a bit of a dark history surrounding a former operator of this bridge. What’s the backstory there?

So back in the 1920s, a man named H.E. Dupuy got the presidential permit to build the first vehicle crossing at Presidio. It used to be a guy with a rowboat who eventually figured out how to put two rowboat together to take cars. But then as more people got cars, that was not the arrangement.

But Mr. Dupuy owned and operated the bridge for a long time and in the 50s started retaliating against the Mexican government, who wanted their share of the tolls. They wanted to be able to operate a toll booth, too. And through that process, he made a lot of enemies and unfairly targeted Mexican-Americans and Mexican nationals.

And that resulted in a huge push for the county to take over control of the bridge to the point that there was such animosity between the county commissioners and Mr. Dupuy that the Precinct 3 county commissioner shot and killed Mr. Dupuy in the street in what he said was self-defense.

Wow, what a story. What happens next with the county now pushing for control?

Essentially what needs to happen is that our local representatives need to go to the Legislature and essentially get TxDOT to express that they are interested in transferring ownership of the bridge to Presidio County.

And then from there, we go to the State Department, and then the State Department takes it to the White House. So it’s ultimately up to whoever is going to be president in early November to decide.

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