Follower of Mexican anarchist causes train crash

On this day in 1915, Luis De la Rosa, revolutionary and follower of the Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón, caused a train crash at Tandy's Station, eight miles north of Brownsville. The incident was one of several raids by the Floresmagonista movement formed by De la Rosa and Aniceto Pizaña. De la Rosa was also in command of a force that took part in the Norias Ranch Raid. As one newspaper noted in 1916, "De la Rosa, a large man in size, is said to have been the brains of what was known among Mexicans as the revolution of Mexicans in Texas." De la Rosa believed in direct action to correct injustices done to Hispanics on both sides of the Rio Grande. He also raised an army of 500 men whose raids and guerrilla fighting on the Mexican border of Texas were connected with the Plan of San Diego, an effort to establish an independent republic in the American Southwest. Cooperation between Mexican and American authorities stopped the guerrilla raids along the lower Rio Grande by 1919.