The San Luis Potosí Tract

As Mr. Blalock searched for land in Mexico, he found several potential properties but particularly liked a tract in the State of San Luis Potosí on the San Luis Potosí rail line. The tract, Tanchichine, near Ciudad Valles, was located, "...121 miles west of the port of Tampico, 100 miles east of San Luis Potosí, [the state capital] 200 miles north of Mexico City".[30] Tampico was an accessible port from which goods could be shipped. The proximity to large cities could provide a valuable source of income from the sale of crops and livestock.[31]

Eager to have this San Luis tract assessed and inspected by other Greer County investors, he sent for a committee of his compatriots. The party of property inspectors included: Mr. George Moore, Mr. Irvin Pierson, Mr. Charley Sawyers, and Mr. Mart Childress, of Mangum; Mr. J. R. Cronch, and Mr. Green Parmer, of Granite; and Mr. S. S. Boozman of Navajoe. Mr. Blalock announced in the July 24 issue of the Mangum Sun-Monitor that, "A party of Greer county citizens have been sent to make a special inspection of the land, the water, power etc., and will be ready to report about August 15 [1902]."[32] They would begin actively organizing the colony after the return of the inspection party.

By the time the article "About the Mexican Colony" was published on July 24, 1902,[33] Mr. Blalock had been doing more than just planning. He had already taken an option on the large tract of land. The property contained 111,120 acres with improvements and the selling price was $50,000. The improvements on the property included, "... a distillery, a sugar mill, tan yard, a fifty-acre coffee grove, nine acres of bananas, and hundreds of India rubber trees."[34] Mr. Blalock gave additional information about the property and reported that, "On the hacienda are 500 cattle, 160 horses...40 acres in sugar cane, and 50 in para grass, 350 under irrigation, 500 acres in cultivation, several stone buildings, one of which has four rooms 20 x 20."[35] Additionally, twenty thousand acres of the land was level agricultural land, and the rest was mountainous with valuable timber and grasses for grazing livestock.

Mr. Blalock reported that seventy-five families of peons lived on the land and would be transferred with the property. He described them as, "...a lower class of natives who are about the same as natives except that when they work for the master he must pay them in advance at the rate of twenty-five cents a day. If the peon fails to do his master's bidding the master reports him to the authorities and he is hustled off into the Mexican army and his home and friends know him no more."[36] According to Mr. Blalock the peons, "...do practically all the work done in Mexico...and pay an annual rent on what they plant..." and not what they harvest as tenants on the land.[37]