CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — South Texas is full of legends and folklore, and one such story is still being told more than 100 years later.
Just outside of the small south Texas town of Falfurrias is a tiny building surrounded by a cemetery. The cemetery is home to a shrine where the body of Pedro (Don Pedrito) Jaramillo is entombed. It is also the very location where in 1881, he settled in what was then the Los Olmos Ranch.
Jaramillo was a curandero, or "faith healer," who said he had received the gift of healing from God after suffering an injury to his nose and healing himself.
"He ran to a nearby pool of water and stuck his nose into the mud and he stayed there for three days," his granddaughter Delores Villarreal previously told 3NEWS. "The pain miraculously went away. That night he heard a voice in a dream telling him to use the healing powers given to him by God to help others."
He wasted no time in doing what he was told in the dream.
"He began his practice as a faith healer almost immediately, prescribing the first thing that he thought of and making no charge for his services," the Texas State Historical Association said.
Jaramillo was born of Tarascan Indian parents near Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, in the mid-nineteenth century. He settled in South Texas in 1881 and was for a long time the only person available for health services between Corpus Christi and Laredo.
As word spread of Jaramillo's healing abilities, people started coming to him-- sometimes hundreds a day.
"Dressed as a Mexican peasant, wearing heavy shoes, a sombrero, and a cowboy vest, he either walked or rode a donkey on his healing missions," TSHA officials said.
He consistently received donations which he would give to churches and buy food with to feed the less fortunate on his missions. On July 3, 1907, Jaramillo passed away.
"More than $5,000 in fifty-cent pieces was found at his home when he died," historians said.
Since his death, people still go to his shrine and ask for healings, Villarreal said.
"There are thousands of incredible testimonials. People who are drawn to the shrine, have faith, share their stories in letters left behind," Villarreal said.
The shrine received a historical marker in 1971. It was heavily damaged due to vandalism in 2020.