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Three Rivers - reh
post office approved the name change on May 1, 1914 to prevent confusing the town with the
community.3
Tips liked to think of himself as the last Empresario in Texas. There were some differences,
however. The first Empresarios received large land grants from Spain, then from Mexico to split
among immigrants settling in Texas. Irishman John McMullen partnered with James McGloin,
another Irishman, to bring immigrants from their troubled fatherland in 1829. They moved into
the Live Oak County area shortly after the last Mexican settlers left. Repeated Indian raids
drove the Mexicans from their substantial stone ranch house on Ramirena Creek in the
southeastern part of the county.4 A remnant of McGloin's colony stayed in that unforgiving,
Indian infested country even after he failed to complete his Empresario contract.
Tips did not have to deal with a grant from the Mexican government, so in that sense he
was not a bona fied Empresario. He was, in his time, a modern Texas land developer whose
building project was underwritten by a consortium of investors. He did not fight Indians either,
which eliminated the biggest obstacle to development and settlement.
Also, the first Empresarios and settlers were Catholic or were forced to convert to
Catholicism if they wanted to sell and buy labors and leagues of land - a condition imposed by
the governments of Spain and later Mexico on anyone who wished to settle in their territories.5
Tips, on-the-other-hand, was Protestant. Had he applied for an Empresario commission back
then, he would have never been granted one unless he had converted or feigned conversion.
Unencumbered by the political foibles that gradually stripped Spain and Mexico of their grip on
Sellman.
4 Sparkman, Ervin L. The People's History of Live Oak County, Texas. Mesquite, Texas: Ide House, 1981, 4 - 12.
s Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "Anglo-American Colonization."
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/AA/umal.html (accessed August 2, 2009).
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