Robert Runyon

Born in Kentucky in 1881, Runyon arrived in Brownsville in 1909, where he lived until his death in 1968, working in the curio, souvenir, postcard, and commercial photography businesses.

After the late 1920s, he grew to be a self-taught botanist, photographing plants, building a herbarium of over 8700 items, amassing a 970-volume botanical library, publishing books on native plants, including Texas Cacti (1930) and Vernacular Names of Plants Indigenous to the Lower Rio Grande Valley (1938), and corresponding with botanical authorities, such as Benjamin Tharp (University of Texas), Liberty Hyde Bailey (Cornell), John Small (New York Botanical Garden), and William Maxson (Smithsonian).

Seeing the loss of the native sabal palm forests of the Lower Rio Grande to agriculture and development, he used his position as Brownsville mayor (1941-43) and as a member of the Brownsville Park Board (1946-49) to plant sabal palms in city parks. Also, through his scientific networks, Runyon worked to preserve the 60-acre remnant on the Rabb plantation (acquired by the National Audubon Society in 1971).