Bruni

Bruni. . This historic settlement was named for Antonio Mateo Bruni (1856-1931), a native of Bozzi, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Bruni's parents died when he was a young boy, and in 1872, he moved to San Antonio to live with an uncle. Five years later, Bruni, along with his brother Luigi, moved to Laredo, where they opened a mercantile store. Antonio Bruni married Consolacion Henry in 1879, and the couple had nine children. Bruni acquired interest in the sheep and cattle industry, and was appointed Webb County tax assessor in 1882. Bruni went on to serve as a county commissioner and as county treasurer., The Texas Mexican Railroad built a station on one of Bruni's ranches ca. 1881, and Bruni took the opportunity to open a commissary at the site. When the first school in the area opened in 1886, the fledgling settlement was called Bruniville. A post office was first established in 1900, and Moglia Lodovico served as the first postmaster. In 1922, the Bruni Townsite Company, established by C. R. Cole and Dudley Tyng, purchased and surveyed over 150 acres approximately one quarter mile west of the site of the school and post office that had already been built., The discovery of oil in the area during the 1920s brought growth to the town of Bruni. Mining of commercial-grade uranium beginning in the 1970s gave the area another economic boost. In 1974 the Bruni, Torrecillas (Oil Town) and Aguilares school districts joined to form the Webb Consolidated Independent School District. When the Mirando schools joined the district in 2005, the Bruni-based WCISD became the only education facilities operating outside of Laredo in Webb County.