Don Pedrito Jaramillo
Shrine restoration project
Shrine restoration project
Shrine restoration project
The Don Pedrito Jaramillo Shrine Restoration Project seeks to preserve and restore the historic Jaramillo shrine located near Falfurrias, Texas. Don Pedrito Jaramillo was a beloved curandero (healer) who helped many people in the South Texas region and beyond until his death in 1907. The shrine remains an active pilgrimage site for Mexican American and indigenous communities in South Texas. Unfortunately, the physical condition of the shrine has deteriorated and is in immediate need of repair. Working in collaboration with the Heritage Museum at Falfurrias, the project helps preserve public access to a landmark tied to faith healing traditions, borderlands history, and regional cultural identity.
In 2026, Refusing to Forget was awarded $30,000 by Latinos in Heritage Conservation to support the planning and preservation work tied to the historic shrine including long-term stewardship and restoration preparation. This is an important first step, but we need more help. Your contribution will allow us to assess the physical conditions of the site, ensure its safety for reopening, and plan physical and online interpretation.
Help us Preserve the Shrine.
Don Pedrito Jaramillo
"Healer of Los Olmos"
In 1880, Don Pedro Jaramillo or “Don Pedrito” as he was popularly known, crossed the border from Mexico into Texas, where he practiced curanderismo, an earth-based healing practice that blends elements of Indigenous medicine with folk Catholicism. The shrine, located approximately 120 miles north of the international border with Mexico, houses Don Pedrito’s tombstone. Inside, there is an altar topped with rows of burning candles all bearing the same black and white image of his face, casting shadows on whitewashed walls decorated with crucifixes, religious statues, and a banner proclaiming “We support our Troops.” Several walls are covered with notes, prayers and petitions to Don Pedrito.
By the time of his death in 1907, Jaramillo was a legend in both Mexican and Indigenous worlds, attracting visitors to his home outside of Falfurrias, Texas not only from northeastern Mexico and Texas, but from across the Apache diaspora as far away as Arizona. His fame eventually attracted the attention of state authorities, including the Texas Medical Association, American Medical Association who investigated him for suspicions of medical fraud. However, the charges were all dismissed, because Jaramillo never defrauded anyone – he never charged for his cures.
It was State Representative José Tomás Canales, who later led the effort to stop the Texas Ranger violence of the 1910s that has been the focus of Refusing to Forget’s public history work, who defended Jaramillo against these charges. (Interestingly, Jaramillo had healed J.T. Canales’ mother years earlier, when physicians failed to do so). Jaramillo also garnered positive attention from State authorities during the drought in South Texas in the 1890s because of the popularity of his healing practice in Los Olmos (where the shrine is now). So many people from the region came to Don Pedrito for healing – as well as food and drink that he provided – that the state used his place to distribute drought relief to the community.
Jaramillo’s fame only continued to grow after his death. His burial place became a shrine and pilgrimage site. More than a century later, he is one of the most influential and widely-known cultural icons of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. This enduring fame and legacy accounts for the fact that the official state historical marker erected at the site of the shrine in 1972 was the first bilingual state marker, and that votive candles with Jaramillo’s visage are sold at grocery stores and other sites across South Texas.
