Talk:Boca Chica Village, Texas

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History outline and summary[edit]

There is a rather extensive summary of the history of Boca Chica Village in the 2013 Draft EIS done by the FAA for SpaceX for the proposed launch site. Since the doc is a US government doc, it is Wiki available under acceptable licenses.

A Wiki-ready citation is here: <ref name=faa201304v1>{{cite report |last=Nield|first=George C. |title=Draft Environmental Impact Statement: SpaceX Texas Launch Site |volume=1 |date=May 2014 |pages=3-32—3-34 |url=https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/environmental/nepa_docs/review/launch/spacex_texas_launch_site_environmental_impact_statement/media/FEIS_SpaceX_Texas_Launch_Site_Vol_I.pdf |publisher=[[Federal Aviation Administration]], [[Office of Commercial Space Transportation]] |quote= sources explicitly quoted from the FAA document include reference to Garza 2012b; Garza and Long 2012b; Hildebrand 1950; Garcia 2003 }}</ref>

The relevant text is:

"In 1904 the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad was completed to Brownsville. This railroad opened the area to northern farmers who began to come to the area at the turn of the twentieth century. They cleared the land, built irrigation systems and roads, and introduced large-scale truck farming and citrus farming. The new farming endeavors began a new period of prosperity around Brownsville. Improvements such as water and sewer lines were completed for the city at this time. Port Isabel, however, remained a small coastal town with a population of less than 200 (Garza 2012b; Garza and Long 2012b; Hildebrand 1950).

"The availability of cheap land in the area created a strong interest in land speculation. Special trains were dispatched to bring land speculators to the area and by the early 1920s as many as 200 people a day were coming to see the land (Garza and Long 2012b; Hildebrand 1950).

"One of the more notable land speculation ventures was the construction of the Del Mar Resort on Boca Chica Beach. Advertised as being on the same latitude as Miami, the resort was built in the 1920s by Colonel Sam Robinson, who moved to the Rio Grande Valley in 1917. The resort had 20 day-cabins available for rent, a bathhouse, and a ballroom. It was quite successful resort until 1933, when a hurricane destroyed most of the buildings. The remaining buildings were turned into a base for the Coast Guard during World War II. As a result of the Great Depression and the hurricane damage, the owners of the property were not able to reopen the resort after the end of the war (Garcia 2003).

"The 1933 hurricane spurred the Works Progress Administration to take part in the dredging and construction of the port of Brownsville, a venture that the city had been trying to complete since 1928. The port was officially opened in 1936. The completion of the port made Brownsville the shipping center for the lower Rio Grande Valley and Mexico. This helped the economy of the town weather the Great Depression and by the beginning of World War II Brownsville was poised for another boom (Garza and Long 2012b).

"Shrimpers moved to the region from Louisiana and other parts of Texas in the 1940s and the town began exporting large amounts of shrimp. Additionally, cotton developed into a large-scale export crop to the area in the late 1940s. In 1949, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway was extended to Brownsville, increasing its shipping capabilities. Brownsville became the leading exporter of cotton in the 1950s after the demand for cotton increased. The boom continued into the 1960s. The population in Brownsville increased by 12,000 people from the 1950s to the 1960s (Garza and Long 2012b).

"In Port Isabel the Intracoastal Waterway had increased trade. A bridge connecting the town to Padre Island was constructed in 1954, helping to make the small town a tourist destination. By this time the population of Port Isabel has increased to 5,300 (Garza 2012b).

"In the early 1960s, John A. Caputa, a radio personality turned real estate developer from Chicago, decided to build a retirement community for Polish immigrants 22 miles east of Brownsville. One of his three business partners already owned 3,250 acres of land inland from the site of the former Del Mar Resort. Together, they created the Rio Grande Beach Corporation to develop the community, with Caputa in charge of marketing the house lots (Kelly ca. 1979). Using radio and print ads, Caputa marketed the retirement community to the working-class Polish community in Chicago, Illinois as the Fort Lauderdale of the west (Heaton 2008; Kelly ca. 1979). He had the property landscaped and brought trains full of Polish immigrants to the site (Chapman 1992).

"Caputa named the retirement community Kennedy Shores after President Kennedy, whom he greatly admired. Lots were sold for $1,200 and houses for $12,500. Within a few years, Kennedy Shores consisted of 30 residences, a restaurant, and a hotel. The community had its own water treatment plant and sewer and electrical services (Garza 2012a). However, in 1967 Hurricane Beulah destroyed the restaurant and utilities and washed away large parts of the property. As a result of the storm, the corporation experienced financial difficulties and 1,000 acres of the original tract were sold at a sheriff’s sale (Kelly ca. 1979).

"Seeing the sheriff’s sale as an opportunity to break from the corporation and continue in his own venture, Caputa purchased the 1,000-acre tract in 1968 and subdivided it into 5,000 lots, which he aimed to sell for $5,000 each. He had electricity restored to the area (but no other utilities) and completed other improvements to the property worth an estimated $250,000. While completing the improvements, Caputa’s former partners began a legal dispute with him over the sheriff’s sale, miring Caputa in legal fees and stalling construction of the village (Kelly ca. 1979).

"Desperate for financing, Caputa took to the radio airwaves again and asked his audience to lend him money towards constructing the retirement village, with the promise that he would repay them with 12 percent interest after a year. Unfortunately, Caputa’s financial and legal problems persisted and he was only able to construct about 35–45 houses, a hotel, a restaurant (demolished, but concrete foundation remains), and a swimming pool, between the late 1960s and mid-1970s (Chapman 1992; Kelly ca. 1992). People from Chicago’s Polish community did, however, move to the village, and in 1975, renamed it Kopernik Shores, after Polish astronomer Nikolai Kopernik (Garcia 2003; Garza 2012a). In 1978, the population of Kopernik Shores was 26 (Garza 2012a). Currently, this development is referred to as Boca Chica Village."

That is a reasonably detailed summary of the origin of Boca Chica Village. N2e (talk) 18:07, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

SpaceX[edit]

There is an article about SpaceX potentially coming to the area with a few quotations from the small group of residents (two who live "year round" and 13 who are "winter Texans" or renters) http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/boca-chica-s-few-residents-concerned-about-possibility-of-spacex/article_5ba32054-c825-11e3-8add-001a4bcf6878.html here], in the The Monitor local newspaper, 19 April 2014. N2e (talk) 15:42, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

SpaceX offers to buy village properties[edit]

SpaceX extended formal offers to buy up many/all? Boca Chica Village properties at three times fair market value in September 2019. Some controversy has ensued. I've tried to add a summary of that situation through mid-October to the article now, with sources. Other editors please review and improve the summary of the process in the article. N2e (talk) 13:31, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Here is another article (here) that seems to indicate Elon Musk has said that, while the 3x offer is not something they can/will negotiate on, as they want/need to be fair/consistent with all properties across the village, it appears that SpaceX would be willing to have market appraisers individually appraise houses to better ascertain base values that are not discernible from the county tax assessor records that were used to generate the September offers. Referring to something Musk said: "While the three-fold number was not negotiable to be fair to everyone, Musk apparently explained, SpaceX would consider new appraisals that addressed residents' concerns." N2e (talk) 10:46, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
(that one may be behind a paywall, but the Internet Archive has a copy of the article here)

Satellite images: before and after SpaceX[edit]

A German publication, Wirtschaft Woche, has posted a very nice story on Boca Chica, with before (2015/2016) and after (recent, 2019) satellite images of the two main SpaceX launch site facility and spaceshipyard facilities, as well as the SpaceX solar field, satellite radio antenna dishes, etc. that are in the village proper, with a 2019 sat image of the village itself. Worth a read if anyone is looking to improve the Boca Chica article. Here Elon Musk builds his shuttle to Mars, 16 October 2019. N2e (talk) 17:54, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 1 July 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: WP:TRAINWRECK withdrawn. I am renominating this RM separately. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 17:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

– Boca Chica, TX is more popular than the Santo Domingo one, since SpX has built a launch site on the Boca Chica, TX. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 13:18, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong oppose first, both because it violates WP:USPLACE and because a tiny village which has been in the news for the past few years does not just become primary topic over a municipality of 120,000 people. Support second because while the latter is clearly more important, we are here to serve our readers who are more likely to be looking for the first. I think disambiguation is the best option. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:59, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Neutral on the first pending resolution of the naming issue. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 13:09, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Rarely do we effect moves like what's being proposed here, where a 6-year-old article about an non-incorporated settlement squashes the name of a 15-year-old article about an incorporated municipality of close to 5,000 times its population and which has its own mayor and municipal council. One exception would be that of greater notability of the settlement despite its much smaller population and its non-existing local government. However, if the claim that it "is more popular than" the Dominican Republic's municipality based solely on the SpaceX launch site argument, then not enough greater notability has been established over the DR town, as placing an SpaceX's launch pad at an almost uninhabited Texas locale doesn't by itself rise to a level of greater notability over the DR locale to warrant the proposed move. Mercy11 (talk) 02:43, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @King of Hearts and Mercy11: Thank you. I am changing my RM. --Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 05:10, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 6 July 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. —usernamekiran (talk) 05:57, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Boca Chica Village, Texas → Boca Chica, Texas – More WP:CONCISE title, since our current article title is too WP:PRECISE. Although the RM seems technical, I think it is controversial. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 17:52, 6 July 2020 (UTC)—Relisting. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ Talk 18:38, 13 July 2020 (UTC)—Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 20:37, 11 August 2020 (UTC)—Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 05:33, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support per nom. Jwolfe (talk) 08:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, I am neutral as I have yet to seen official confirmation of either of the two. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:32, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I'm not necessarily opposed to this, but the proposed change in title represents a change in the scope of the article. The broad-concept of "Boca Chica" is a peninsula (subdelta) separated from Mexico by the Rio Grande. Included on this peninsula are a village (Boca Chica Village), a beach ("Boca Chica Beach"), state parkland which is part of a federally-administered wildlife refuge, a Civil War battlefield and a private spaceport which is sometimes called "Boca Chica". Given this expansion of scope, I think the correct format of the title should be Boca Chica (Texas). – wbm1058 (talk) 19:39, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Per WP:PLACEDAB:
    • With the names of cities, towns, villages and other settlements, the tag is normally preceded by a comma, as in Hel, Poland. This is often applied to low-level administrative units as well (Polk County, Tennessee), but less so for larger subdivisions or historical regions (Galicia (Spain); Nord (French department)). Any specific national convention takes precedence though.
    • With natural features, the tag normally appears in parentheses, as in Eagle River (Colorado). Specific pre-existing national conventions may take precedence though.
    • Generic parenthetical disambiguating tags as used for most Wikipedia articles are used only occasionally for geographic names (as in Wolin (town), where no regional tag would be sufficient to distinguish the town from the island of Wolin).
I don't think the Village can claim to be primary topic for "Boca Chica" given that Wikipedia did not even have an article about it until after the village rose to prominence due to it being the favored location for the construction of the SpaceX private launch site. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:44, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose since Village appears to be part of the name. Dicklyon (talk) 00:40, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I concur with wbm1058. The wider scope of the entire "area" (for lack of a better word) of Boca Chica (Texas) is all of those things wbm1058 mentions, several of them have their own articles. It seems to me that one way around the problem, where as Dicklyon notes, the "Village" term is actually a correct part of the Boca Chica Village, Texas name, and that village has a history etc. and is a valid article just with that scope, is to create the article Boca Chica (Texas), and have it cover the meta scope of all the things that Boca Chica is becoming, including possibly the new SpaceX Boca Chica resort that has only been WP:V in news reports in recent days. Cheers. N2e (talk) 12:15, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm good with that. Create Boca Chica (Texas) and merge into it. Or whoever is taking on the scope expansion can just move it there and expand it when ready. But we shouldn't just move it. Dicklyon (talk) 00:11, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I created an area article per the several suggestions above: Boca Chica (Texas), have fixed a bad link to the Dominican Republic Boca Chica that was in the Civil War battlefield article, and made a first pass at improving the Boca Chica (disambiguation) page. I'll soon move the Boca Chica beach section out of the village article and into the area article. See what you think. Cheers. N2e (talk) 02:45, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 3 March 2021[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. WP:SNOW closure. (closed by non-admin page mover) -- Calidum 17:33, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]


– The incorporation is of an existing settlement, just under a new name. Better to move the existing article to its new name, than to make a separate article. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 01:05, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Starbase, Texas titles a page with content and so it must also be dispositioned. This request has been altered to reflect that fact. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 02:57, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose at this time. The proposed incorporation has not yet happened. There is no legal or geographical meaning to the name "Starbase" at this time, only a proposal from SpaceX that may or may not go thru. If it *does* go thru, then only at that time might we reconsider. Until then, there is no such place as "Starbase", and the current article should be kept intact. Spartan S58 (talk) 03:18, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This proposal doesn't make a lot of sense. We can't have two articles about the same topic, that's WP:Content forking. So Boca Chica Village is expected to be a residential community or neighborhood within the larger incorporated area which will be named Starbase. You either maintain separate articles, with Boca Chica Village, Texas a WP:Summary style subtopic of Starbase, Texas, or merge Boca Chica Village, Texas into the new Starbase, Texas stub, or move Boca Chica Village, Texas over the top of the existing Starbase, Texas (deleting it), and then expand the scope of that article to include the incorporated area outside of the village. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:35, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • If having both articles isn't permissible, then better to delete the Starbase article, since there is, in fact, no such thing as Starbase (yet). If Starbase actualizes, then we could reconsider. Spartan S58 (talk) 04:59, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose unless and until the proposed incorporation actually happens, per WP:CRYSTAL. Until then, the existing Starbase stub should become a redirect to the appropriate section of this article.Rosbif73 (talk) 07:57, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for two reasons: 1) the area proposed to be included in "Starbase, Texas" is, per sources, "much larger than the area of Boca Chica Village", and 2) it would be premature to do any renaming of this article until the Starbase thing has actually occurred, AND it is shown that Boca Chica Village as a small community or subpart of the the larger Starbase actually goes away and is assimilated. It is quite possible that Boca Chica Village as name for the sub-area may last for decades. Or, it might just assimilate into the techno-metaverse of Starbase; we simply don't know. N2e (talk) 10:33, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: They are not the same thing and the renaming involves more than changing the name. ~ Ase1estecharge-paritytime 11:56, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The small village of "Boca Chica Village" is NOT what has been suggested would become "Starbase, Texas"[edit]

Before the next inevitable WP:MOVE proposal is made, we should note here on that Talk page that the small village of "Boca Chica Village" is NOT what has been suggested would become "Starbase, Texas." Rather, as is made clear in a number of sources, the "Starbase" moniker is being proposed by Musk for a larger part of the Boca Chica subdelta peninsula, of which Boca Chica Village is only one (relatively small, geographically) part. There is nothing official yet, of course. But we should not confuse ourselves and other Wikipedia editors by thinking this is merely renaming the village. Cheers. N2e (talk) 18:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And we need proper county/state sources for incorporation, not a sign on SpaceX property --Philipwhiuk (talk) 09:32, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Texas Local Government Code section 5.901 states that a community with less than 2000 inhabitants can have a maximum surface area of 2 square miles at time of incorporation. I doubt Starbase's initial population (if incorporation ever happens) is going to be over 2000 inhabitants, hence its initial area could not be more than two square miles-which means it couldn't be much larger than the existing Village area. Musk's expressed desire that it be a lot bigger than that is just his desire, without considering the reality of what Texas state law actually allows. Now, after incorporation, it could potentially grow bigger through annexation, but it is impossible to say with any confidence how big and how quickly it could grow in that way. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 04:12, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

Here are additional sources that might be used to improve the article, for a bit of the historical and current situation in Boca Chica Village. They are already encoded in wiki citation syntax, in the event anyone wants to use them to work on this article on the village: N2e (talk) 18:51, 28 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • <ref name=sanews20210424>{{cite news |title='This is not SpaceX property': Elon Musk's company looks to rename South Texas town 'Starbase' |url=https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/SpaceX-Boca-Chica-takeover-16125119.php |last=Lingle|first=Brandon |work=[[San Antonio Express News]] |date=24 April 2021 |accessdate=28 April 2021 }}</ref>
  • <ref name=sanews20210428>{{cite news |title=SpaceX's Boca Chica venture has all the 'versus' categories covered |url=https://www.expressnews.com/sa-inc/article/SpaceX-s-Boca-Chica-venture-South-Texas-16133753.php |last=Lingle|first=Brandon |work=[[San Antonio Express News]] |date=28 April 2021 |accessdate=28 April 2021 }}</ref>

Contradiction?[edit]

Near the bottom of 'Early History' the village is stated to have had a population of only 6 permanent residents by 2008, and this is implied to have been a pre-existing and ongoing trend of abandonment before SpaceX's interest in the site. But just below that the word 'many' is used twice to describe the residents. Is this not a contradiction in terms or sort of misleading? Or are we counting the superfluous vacation homes and unoccupiable wrecks as 'residents' as well? 2603:8080:5701:9E54:E0FB:BA41:E1D9:182B (talk) 21:53, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Current versus former names[edit]

Although the name "Kopernik Shores" has largely fallen out of common use, it remains the name officially recognised by the US Board of Geographic Names, see their database entry 1377502. I think it makes sense for the article title to use the de facto most common name, but it is important that the article not give the false impression that the name "Kopernik Shores" is a former or superseded name, when officially it is not. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 04:16, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gosh. Makes one wonder what the process in for the "US Board of Geographic Names" is to update any names in their (apparently, long outdated) database.
In any case, with a citation to that factoid, it could probably be mentioned in the article. But it seems not too important to me. But any editor could add it, if sourced. N2e (talk) 12:53, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Their database isn't outdated, they update it all the time. There is a well-defined process for them to add or change names.
The thing is, if nobody (it can be a state or local government, or even a private request) asks them to change the name, they'll never change it. They are responsible for over 1 million official names in the US, which forces them to be largely reactive rather than proactive. And, as far as I'm aware, nobody has ever asked them to change "Kopernik Shores" to something else, so they never have. If someone asked them to rename it "Boca Chica Village", they probably would agree to that, given that name has been in common use for an extended period. If someone asked them to rename it to "Starbase", they might do that too (although they have a clause in their rules about refusing name changes "connected to a commercial product or enterprise", so they might refuse "Starbase" on those grounds–they wouldn't if it was formerly incorporated as such, and they probably wouldn't if the request came from someone other than SpaceX, especially a government request).
I will think about if there is a way to incorporate mention of this into the article. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 18:09, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Boca_Chica_Village,_Texas&oldid=1206350220"