Mccallen, TX RoadyGoat

McAllen might be relatively low-lying, just a bit over a hundred feet above sea level, but it has always stood tall in the Rio Grande Valley. You see those ebony trees everywhere? They’ve witnessed the making of a city, a place where cultures meet and dreams take root.

7.5 mi away

Mccallen, TX RoadyGoat

McAllen sits at a low 121 feet above sea level, but its story rises much higher. It’s easy to think of it as just another Texas town, but its position on the border with Mexico – specifically its access to vital trade routes – shaped its destiny. John McAllen, the namesake pioneer, probably didn’t envision a major international trade hub when he first settled here, but the city's location gave it a natural advantage. You’ll see ebony trees everywhere, a subtle reminder of the subtropical climate that allows for year-round agriculture and attracts winter Texans seeking a warmer escape. These days, you'll hear a lot about the city's growth and its importance in healthcare, but ask a local why people *really* end up staying, and they'll likely point to the culture that has grown out of the borderland. You see it in the devotion to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, a striking Gothic Revival landmark built in the 1950s. And you see it in the fierce pride of the McAllen High School Bulldogs, who brought home a state football championship in 2016. It's a unique blend of Texas grit and Mexican heritage, a place where international business thrives, but community still comes first.

7.5 mi away

Mccallen, TX RoadyGoat

McAllen wasn't always the bustling city it is today. It began as a small agricultural community in the early 20th century, carved out of the brushland of the Rio Grande Valley. Imagine a landscape dotted with hardy ebony trees, their dark silhouettes stark against the bright Texas sun. The land, though relatively flat at just over a hundred feet above sea level, held promise for those willing to work it. The city owes its name to John McAllen, a pioneer whose vision helped shape the region. The arrival of the railroad was a turning point, connecting this corner of the Valley to broader markets and spurring growth. Early settlers, drawn by the promise of fertile soil and opportunity, faced challenges – the harsh climate, the isolation, and the hard work required to transform the land. The Gothic Revival architecture of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, built in 1950, stands as a testament to the enduring spirit of those who came before.

7.5 mi away

Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla

1810

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811), for whom the county of Hidalgo is named, was born near Guanajuato, Mexico, while the country was still under Spanish rule. After being ordained a priest in 1779, he served churches in Colima, San Felipe, and Dolores, where he emerged as a champion of human rights who feared the colonial system would never allow independence and justice for all citizens. A firm believer in economic independence from the mother country, Hidalgo worked toward that goal by teaching farming methods and industrial techniques to Indians and others in his parish. In 1810 Padre Hidalgo, along with military leader Ignacio de Allende, conspired to overthrow the Royalist government. Warned that officials suspected their plot, Hidlago gathered sympathizers in Dolores. Following early mass on the morning of September 16, 1810, Hidalgo made his famous "Grito De Dolores," a call to arms which in effect began the revolt that led to Mexican independence from Spain in 1821. During a battle on the Bridge of Calderon, Padre Hidalgo was captured and later was unfrocked and shot. Considered "The Father of Mexican Independence," Padre Hidalgo continues to be honored for his leadership throughout Mexico and the Southwest. (1983)

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El Sal Del Rey, C. S. A.

1862

Front side: Large salt lake located 26 miles northeast was principal source of salt in South Texas during the Civil War. Put under state guard and agent 1862. Salt sold to families, Texas Military Board, Army of Confederacy and wagons returning north on cotton road-vital trade route for South thru Mexico. Due to military and domestic importance, Union forces periodically wrecked the salt works from November 1863 until war's end. It was also a Texas Confederate base for the 1864 recapture of Brownsville. A memorial to Texas who served the Confederacy; erected by the State of Texas 1963. Back side: Salting or smoking were only was to preserve meat at time of Civil War. When South levied a meat tithe, salt necessary to cure bacon and beef for military. Salt was a must for horses and mules used by cavalry, artillery and supply wagons. Hides were preserved with it to make leather for shoes and harness. Other wartime salt works were operated along coast and in 7 counties in central, east and west Texas. El Sal del Rey, Spanish for "Salt for the King" also played a significant role in the history of Texas mineral law. A legal controversy raged for years over its ownership. Under Spain, mineral rights belonged to crown. Mexico retained the principle of the state ownership of minerals. Texas, as Republic and State, kept minerals in the public domain. Private possession of the lake began with the 1866 Texas Constitutional Convention which relinquished all minerals to landowners. The principle of private ownership was readopted in the Constitutions of 1869 and 1876.

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Restlawn Cemetery

1928

This property is believed to be the only graveyard in Hidalgo County dedicated for African American burials. Prior to its founding in 1928, blacks were allowed burial space only in private ranch cemeteries. In the 1920s, Edinburg had a growing black community of domestic and agricultural workers and entrepreneurs. A.Y. Baker, county sheriff and director of the Hillcrest Cemetery Association, designated a half-acre in the undeveloped northwest corner of Hillcrest for a "Black Cemetery," which was renamed Restlawn in 1993. The oldest grave, unmarked, is for Leonard Bass (d. 1928). World War II veteran Jacob White (d. 1945), for whom local American Legion Post 884 was named, is also among those interred here. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2004

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Cano, Pedro

1944

Pedro Cano, World War II veteran and Medal of Honor recipient, was born in General Terán, Nuevo León, Mexico, on July 7, 1920. His mother, Nicolasa González Cano, and father, Secundio Cano, settled in Edinburg, Texas, when Pedro was an infant. Because his educational opportunities and knowledge of English were limited, Cano worked in agricultural jobs throughout the Rio Grande Valley until he was drafted into the United States Army in 1943. He was deployed to Europe as a private with Company C, Eighth Infantry Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division. On December 2, 1944, while participating in the battle of Hürtgen Forest, Private Cano's unit launched an attack on German machine-gun emplacements at Schevenhütte, Germany. With his unit pinned down, Cano advanced alone through a densely-mined area to within ten yards of the enemy and successfully fired a rocket into the emplacement and killed seven enemy soldiers. He then moved to another emplacement and used rifle fire and grenades to kill two more machine gunners and disperse several others. When an adjacent company came under heavy enemy fire, Cano crossed the front and crawled to within fifteen yards of the enemy and killed another four enemy soldiers and dispatched two machine-gun nests. Over the course of two days, Private Cano repeatedly moved across the front lines to aid other immobilized units and eventually destroyed a total of six machine-gun emplacements and dispatched approximately thirty German soldiers. Several days later while on patrol, Cano's platoon was surprised by German soldiers. Despite sustaining injuries that would leave him permanently disabled, Cano lay silent and motionless until the German soldiers moved within range. He then tossed a grenade at the enemy and killed or wounded all of them. Following the war, Cano was sent to a veteran's hospital in Waco, Texas, until his release in the spring of 1945. For his service, Private Cano received a Purple Heart, two Silver Stars, and the Distinguished Service Cross. On April 26, 1946, at a ceremony awarding Cano the Distinguished Service Cross, Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright thanked him for his service and suggested that he was deserving of the nation's highest honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor. In May 1946 Pedro Cano realized two of his dreams: he became a naturalized American citizen and bought a small farm near Edinburg, Texas. He died on June 24, 1952, as a result of a head-on automobile collision in Pharr, Texas. Pedro Cano was survived by his wife, Herminia Garza Cano, and his three children-daughters Dominga and Maria and son Susano. Cano was buried with military honors at Hillcrest Memorial Park in Edinburg, Texas, where a street and elementary school now bear his name. In 2009 the Texas state legislature declared April 26 to be "Pedro Cano Day" and posthumously awarded him the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor. In 2014 following a United States Department of Defense review of Jewish and Hispanic soldiers who might have been passed over for recognition, Pedro Cano was posthumously given the nation's highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor, for his acts of gallantry and intrepidity.

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Closner, John

1883

John Closner, Hidalgo County developer, the son of Swiss parents John and Elizabeth (Blumer) Closner, was born on March 24, 1853, in New Glaris, Wisconsin. The family moved to Minnesota and Iowa before moving to Texas in 1870 and settling in Bosque County. Closner began hauling freight to Fort Griffin in 1871, worked for railroad construction and streetcar companies in Oklahoma and Galveston, and spent 1876 to 1882 working on the extension of Jay Gould 's International-Great Northern Railroad in Mexico, where he contracted erysipelas, an infectious skin disease that continued to affect him for many years. Left in financial distress when the railroad failed, Closner moved to Rio Grande City in 1883 with only fifteen dollars and became a stage driver to Peña Station . He later obtained the mail contract between Brownsville and Rio Grande City. In 1884 he moved to Hidalgo, then the Hidalgo county seat, bought a tract of land, and was appointed deputy sheriff by James L. Dougherty. Closner served as sheriff until 1889 and became tax collector; he became deputy United States marshall for a time and remained in these positions until his retirement as Hidalgo County Treasurer in 1919, when an audit of the county record office revealed that many records were missing. Some sources suggest that Closner may have been implicated. He and stock-raiser W. F. Sprague were involved in bankruptcy hearings from 1917 until July 4, 1919, facing creditors' claims of nearly $2 million. At a time when banditry and cattle rustling were rife, Closner's tenure was marked by waves of border violence growing out of the Garza War and the 1910 revolution by Francisco I. Madero against the Mexican government of Porfirio Díaz. Closner survived several attempts on his life, including an 1899 assassination attempt by Pancho Garza, plotted by the Dougherty brothers, whom he had helped indict for stealing horses and, according to some accounts, for an effort to kill local officials and burn the town. As one of the Rio Grande valley's largest landowners, Closner contributed most by promoting irrigation and diversified farming. He bought land at twenty-five cents to one dollar an acre and managed to acquire 45,000 acres by 1904. He constructed a canal system in 1895 to carry water from the Rio Grande to his alfalfa, banana, cotton, tobacco, and other crops and experimented successfully with growing a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. His sugarcane won a gold medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904. Through his influence and a gift of 2,000 acres in 1904, Closner, with the help of Leonidas C. Hill, Sr. , Tom Hicks, and others, obtained the extension of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway from Harlingen to Samfordyce. In 1906, with William Sprague, he built a branch line of the railroad from San Juan Plantation , named for him by his wife, to the site of Chapin, which in 1908 he developed with Sprague and Judge Dennis Bangs Chapin. Closner and Sprague donated 1,400 acres to the development, which was renamed Edinburg in 1911, and arranged for an election on October 8, 1908, to make the town the county seat. To prevent resistance by those who objected, tents were set up to receive the county records, and men with wagons and mule teams made the move overnight. In 1907 Closner, William Briggs, and O. E. M. Jones were instrumental in founding East McAllen, today known as McAllen. Closner gave Edinburg its first public school, served for years as president of the Edinburg State Bank and director of other Valley banks, and encouraged development of Edinburg's irrigation system. In 1902 he started a private telephone system, which later developed into the Hidalgo Telephone Company. He married Ida Louise Cook at Galveston on August 19, 1876. In 1888 Closner was married for a second time, this time to Ann Sheridan Dougherty of Brownsville, with whom he had three children. After this wife died in 1903, he married Alice Dougherty, sister o

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De La Viña, Gustavo

1970

Gustavo “Gus” de la Viña (Vina) was the first Mexican American to serve as chief of the United States Border Patrol . He worked to restrain the flow of illegal immigration into the U.S., initiated a proactive strategy in border protection, and worked to secure the safety of would-be undocumented immigrants. De la Viña was born on June 24, 1939, in Edinburg, Texas. His father died when he was just an infant, leaving his mother, a schoolteacher, to raise Gus and his brother Frank. Gus graduated from Edinburg High School in 1958 and in 1963 graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from what became the University of Texas Pan American (presently part of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley). He worked for some time as an elementary school gym teacher but later joined the U. S. Border Patrol in 1970. He was assigned to the Eagle Pass, Texas, port of entry. Through the years De la Viña occupied several supervisory positions at border patrol academies and ascended the ranks to deputy El Paso sector chief from 1984 to 1990. At a time when the San Diego sector was considered the busiest in the nation, De la Viña served for four years as chief patrol agent. While working in San Diego, De la Viña implemented Operation Gatekeeper. The program began in the early 1990s, and it consisted of adding infrastructure such as improved border fencing and enhanced technology (including stadium-style lighting and automated processing of detainees). The operation also significantly increased the number of agents along the border. The border patrol launched the operation in San Diego, then in El Paso, and finally along the entire Mexican border. Although the federal government deemed the operation successful, others criticized the human costs of its success. The new strategy diverted human trafficking to mountainous and arid regions to the east of San Diego, which proved more difficult for immigrants and resulted in more deaths. After his work in San Diego, in 1995 De la Viña became Western regional director for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which at the time was the border patrol's parent agency. Finally in 1997 De la Viña became chief of the border patrol; he was the first Mexican American to hold the position. Under his care, the border patrol was responsible for patrolling the Mexican and Canadian land borders and the coastal waters surrounding the Florida Peninsula and Puerto Rico. With maritime jurisdiction in U.S. ports, harbors, vessels, and waterfront facilities, the United States Coast Guard collaborated with the border patrol to help deter illegal immigration in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, and the Pacific coasts. In 1998, a year after assuming his post as border patrol chief, De la Viña created the Border Safety Initiative. The initiative was meant to warn unauthorized immigrants of the perils of border crossings and included the use of public service announcements on both sides of the border. It also consisted of proactive searches for immigrants that were abandoned and suffering in deserts and other potentially deadly environments. Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, De la Viña volunteered to send border patrol agents to provide additional visible security at many airports. He also oversaw the transition of the border patrol from the Department of Justice to the Customs and Border Protection Agency within the Department of Homeland Security. He remained chief of the border patrol until his retirement in 2004. After retiring from the border patrol, De la Viña became an adviser to the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program within the Department of Justice. While on assignment in Bosnia-Herzegovina, “Chief” De la Viña died of natural causes on October 26, 2009. He was survived by his wife Donna O. de la Viña of Mesa, Arizona, and four children from a previous marriage—Gustavo Jr., Dina, Monica, and Monette. He was buried in Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Mesa, Arizona. During his li

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Edinburg, Texas

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Mccallen, TX RoadyGoat

Mccallen, TX RoadyGoat

Mccallen, TX RoadyGoat

Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla

El Sal Del Rey, C. S. A.

Restlawn Cemetery

Cano, Pedro

Closner, John

De La Viña, Gustavo

Things to Do in Edinburg

Everything Near Edinburg