Harlingen, Texas

Everything Harlingen is known for

4 songs mention this city 1 artist from here

Music in Harlingen

Songs About Harlingen

Harlingen Belle
John Baumann
78%
"TITLE"
Merry Christmas from the Family
Robert Earl Keen
55%
"Fran and Rita drove from Harlingen"
heard it all before
bob wayne
25%
leavin' texas
jerry jeff walker
10%

Artists From Harlingen

J
Jacob Thomas Peña
latin

Rivers & Roads in Song near Harlingen

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Harlingen.

Rio Grande / Río Bravo 163 songs Rio Grande / Río Bravo 250 songs

Musical Heritage

Freddy Fender (Baldemar Huerta) RoadyGoat

San Benito put his face on the water tower for a reason. Baldemar Huerta was born there in 1937, and the world came to know him as Freddy Fender. He blended Tejano, rhythm and blues, and honky-tonk into something all his own, and he took two songs to number one — "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" and "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights." In 1990 he won a Grammy with the Tejano supergroup the Texas Tornados. He never forgot the resacas of his hometown. Lung cancer took him in 2006, down in Corpus Christi, and they buried him back home under a big stone that tells his whole story. The city named his street after him. More than four thousand fans have signed a petition to get him into the Country Music Hall of Fame — and this month, San Benito wrote his name into the conjunto one.

RoadyGoat → · 5.7 mi away

Narciso Martinez RoadyGoat

Narciso Martinez was born across the river in Reynosa in 1911 and raised in La Paloma, a scrap of a community on the edge of San Benito. His family followed the crops around Texas, and somewhere in there he taught himself the accordion on a little two-row Hohner. They called him El Huracán del Valle — the Hurricane of the Valley. He took rancheras and polkas and braided them together, teamed up with a bajo sexto man named Santiago Almeida out of Skidmore, and by the mid-thirties the two of them were working Brownsville and Raymondville. They cut records for RCA's Bluebird label down in San Antonio — "La Chicharronera," "La Parrita," "Los Coyotes." The folks at the cultural arts center named for him will tell you he built the template for conjunto. Every accordion in the Valley's been chasing that hurricane since.

RoadyGoat → · 5.7 mi away

Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center RoadyGoat

Down in San Benito, the accordion is close to a native tongue, and one name sits at the root of it: Narciso Martinez. He grew up right here, and he's the reason the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center carries his name — a place built to preserve the heritage of the Mexican American community across South Texas. Rogelio T. Nunez runs it. Here's the thing: the center started here in San Benito, and right now it doesn't even have a building to call its own — no walls, just the mission. And still, every year, it throws a conjunto festival over in nearby Los Fresnos, one folks will tell you is the longest running in the whole Rio Grande Valley. Turns out you don't need an address to keep a sound alive.

RoadyGoat → · 5.7 mi away

Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum RoadyGoat

San Benito bills itself the Conjunto Capital of the World, and it's got the museum to back it up. Reynaldo Avila Senior first launched the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame around the turn of the millennium, and after he passed in 2019 and the pandemic shut the doors, his family reopened it in 2023 — inside the old Azteca Building, a cream-colored place built in the shape of a ship. Inside: accordions, stage outfits, a room all for Freddy Fender, and two old vinyl presses from Ideal Records that once stamped out fifteen hundred records a day. They've inducted more than ninety men and women. And this month they added the biggest name of all — Freddy Fender himself, the San Benito boy whose face is painted on the town water tower.

RoadyGoat → · 5.7 mi away

History of Harlingen

Harlingen, TX RoadyGoat

Harlingen's strategic location at the intersection of U.S. Route 77 and U.S. Route 83, which are co-designated as Interstate 69 East and Interstate 2 respectively, has fostered its development as a distribution, shipping, and industrial center. This key transportation hub in northwestern Cameron County has played a crucial role in the city's growth and economic development.

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Harlingen, TX RoadyGoat

The Harlingen Municipal Auditorium is a notable landmark in the city, with a seating capacity of 2,300. It serves as a venue for cultural events and performances, including the Rio Grande Valley Civic Association's winter concert series. This auditorium is an important part of Harlingen's civic and cultural life, providing a space for the community to come together and enjoy the arts.

RoadyGoat →

Birthplace of the Ghost Squadron RoadyGoat

As you pass Valley International Airport, you're looking at the old home field of a one-of-a-kind outfit: the Commemorative Air Force. It started in 1957 about twenty miles west of here, in Mercedes, where a crop-duster named Lloyd Nolen and four friends split the cost of a P-51 Mustang they nicknamed Red Nose. Their mission was simple and stubborn — keep the warplanes of World War Two from going to the scrapyard. They added a pair of F8F Bearcats, called themselves the Confederate Air Force, and started putting on airshows. In 1968 they moved the whole operation up to Harlingen and named it Rebel Field, and for the next twenty-three years this was headquarters. Every October the skies over town filled with the roar of B-17s, Corsairs and Messerschmitts, and the crowds came by the thousands. They were the 'Ghost Squadron,' flying history instead of parking it. Headquarters went to Midland in 1991 — but Harlingen is where the collection grew up.

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Bobby Joe Morrow

1935

Born in nearby Rangerville to Bob Floyd (1907-1983) and Mattie Lucille (1908-1996) Morrow, Bobby Joe Morrow (1935-2020) grew up in a simple clapboard house on a 600-acre cotton farm. Morrow began running by chasing jackrabbits. He attended San Benito High School where he played football and, in 1951, started competing in track and field. Morrow won state championships in the 100-yard dash (twice) and the 220-yard dash. After high school, he attended Abilene Christian College where he won around 80 sprint championships, including the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championship in the 100-meter dash when he was a freshman. His coach, Oliver Jackson, said in an interview, "Bobby had fluidity of motion like nothing I've ever seen. He could run a 220 with a root beer float on his head and never spill a drop."
 During college, he competed in the 1956 Olympic games in Melbourne, Australia. At the age of just 20, he won three gold medals for the 100-meter, 200-meter, and 4x100 meter relay, becoming the first man since fellow American and his personal hero, Jesse Owens (1913-1980), to win all three events. Only two men since Morrow have matched the feat. His Olympic performance also tied the world record for the 200-meter dash with a time of 20.6 seconds. Morrow received international acclaim for the achievement. He went on to set 14 world records and appear on the covers of famous magazines including Life and Sports Illustrated. Morrow is a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. After not participating in the 1960 Olympics, he returned to the family farm and maintained a quiet life in Texas until his death. (2022)

Historical Marker → · 4.7 mi away

Hill, Leonidas Carrington, Sr. [Lon]

1903

Leonidas (Lon) Carrington Hill, Sr., South Texas developer, the son of Maj. William H. and Minerva Frances (Vernon) Hill, was born on Gilleland Creek in Travis County, Texas, on July 31, 1862. He attended Rock Church School, Parson's Seminary Episcopal School near Manor, and Add-Ran Male and Female College. Hill married Eustacia Dabney on December 13, 1882. After managing a general store in Manor, he studied law and moved to Austin to attend the law school at the University of Texas. He also attended the University of Virginia, where he received his license to practice law in that state on September 1, 1890; he was licensed for practice in Texas on March 13, 1891. In April of that year Hill and his family moved to Beeville, where he practiced law for twelve years. On June 20, 1896, the Bee County Democrats endorsed Hill for district attorney. He was serving in that position as late as 1899, by which time he was considered one of the Democratic party leaders of the county. Hill was first introduced to the lower Rio Grande valley while traveling from Alice to Brownsville. He became interested in developing the area and started purchasing land in Cameron County. He started a rice plantation in the Brownsville area, ran the Miller Hotel, and platted Six Shooter Junction. He continued to practice law in Bee County through 1902, while his rice plantation remained under the management of Elmo Coleman. Between August 1901 and November 1902 Hill acquired 300,000 acres in the Hidalgo-Cameron County area. The city of Harlingen, which he founded, was located on land that had been Cameron County school lands, Texas school lands, and part of the King Ranch . He paid $2.50 an acre for the King Ranch property he purchased from Mrs. Henrietta King . On June 6, 1903, Hill called a mass meeting in Brownsville to propose the construction of a railroad; he subsequently headed the soliciting committee to raise the bonus for the road. On June 10, 1903, Mrs. Hill and their eleven children joined him in Cameron County, first at Point Isabel and then at Brownsville. At that time Hill was operating a hardware and implement store in Brownsville. A year later, when the Gulf Coast lines reached the clearing that was to be Harlingen, he was one of the three men who guaranteed the bonus for an extension of the Sam Fordyce branch to the Starr county line. On August 10, 1903, he chartered the Lon C. Hill Improvement Company, which became the Lon C. Hill Town and Improvement Company in 1904. Eustacia and her youngest child died in 1904 of typhoid fever. In 1904 Hill chartered the Capisallo Town and Improvement Company, which laid out the town of Lonsboro. It was later sold to the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company and renamed Mercedes. That same year Hill was one of the incorporators of McAllen. He and others chartered the Harlingen Land and Water Company for $300,000 in 1907. By November 15, 1907, he certified that the company was operating twenty-six miles of canals and that 75,000 acres was under irrigation or being prepared for it. The Hill Sugar Mill was in operation in Harlingen by November 1911. Hill participated in passing the original state law governing irrigation districts, and on August 10, 1914, Cameron County Irrigation District No. 1 was established. Hill was often called "the Chief" because of his height and his heavy, shoulder-length hair. During the early 1900s he met Rex Beach, who chose to use Hill as the model for the main character in his novel Heart of the Sunset (1915). In 1915 Hill received orders from the Texas Rangers to be a border scout so that he might fight off Mexican bandits. About that time he befriended William Jennings Bryan and sold him some land in South Texas. The Hill Sugar Mill was burned down by bandits on July 17, 1917. During World War I Hill served as a "dollar a year man" in Washington, D.C. He continued his land and water development until his death at Harlingen on May 5, 1935. Lon C. Hill Park was ded

Tsha Handbook →

Tichenor, McHenry

1930

McHenry Tichenor, media mogul and Spanish-language radio pioneer, was born on December 21, 1897, in Morganfield, Union County, Kentucky. He was the fourth of five sons of Joseph M. and Effie M. (Coon) Tichenor. His father, a telegraph operator and later a farmer, had served during the Civil War as a private in the Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry. Educated in public schools in Hopkinsville, Christian County, Kentucky, McHenry followed his older brother, Warren Clay, to Oklahoma City, where both were employed in the newspaper business at the Oklahoman and the Oklahoma City Times . In 1917 the brothers served in the Oklahoma National Guard. The unit was called to active duty in 1918, and the 186 men and 212 horses went to war in 1918 as Company F 111th Ammunition Train, Thirty-sixth Division, where Warren Clay rose to the rank of captain. By 1927 McHenry had moved to Shawnee, Oklahoma, where he was advertising manager for the daily newspaper. In 1928 he married Texan Genevieve Beryl Smith. In 1930 McHenry Tichenor came to the rapidly-developing lower Rio Grande valley of Texas. In 1932 he was able to buy the struggling Valley Morning Star newspaper with its offices in downtown Harlingen, Texas. The purchase from the March-Fentress Group was said to cost $50,000, of which $10,000 was cash. Five years later Tichenor sold the paper to Hubert Hudson for $125,000. Tichenor served as administrator for the relatively new Valley Baptist Hospital and guided it out of serious fiscal difficulties. In 1942 and 1943 he served on its board of trustees. This is likely where exposure to less fortunate patients led to his quiet lifelong medical philanthropy. In the mid-1940s Tichenor and his wife purchased the estate of land promoter, Al F. Parker, in La Feria, Texas. The structure and its beautifully landscaped surroundings occupy a city block and are currently maintained as the McHenry Tichenor Museum Project, a fitting legacy for the character and leadership of Tichenor. In 1940 Tichenor made a decision that would shape the rest of his life.He organized the Harbenito Broadcasting Company. The name was a combination of Harlingen and the adjacent city of San Benito. The radio station opened with a paltry 250-watt signal and a staff of eleven. It secured the call sign KGBS, and popular belief holds that Tichenor used the initials of his wife, Geneviere Beryl Smith, for the call sign. In January 1944 it became an affiliate of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and later a minor affiliate of ABC. GBS, however, was also the initials George B. Storer, founder of Storer Communications. In a shrewd move Tichenor, in 1950, sold the call sign KGBS, allowing it to become the call sign of a Storer station in California. His South Texas station then became KGBT by 1952. By 1954 Tichenor's broadcasting entity had expanded with the acquisition of radio station KSOX in Harlingen. On 1530 kHz, this first 50,000-watt station on the Texas side of the Rio Grande valley was originally built by former Harris County judge and Houston mayor, Roy Hofheinz . After the purchase, KGBT gave up its 1240 kHz dial spot for 1530, moved into studios and offices at 1519 West Harrison, and in time, adopted full-time Spanish-language programming—one of the earliest stations in Texas to do so. This innovation was revolutionary for its time. In 1957 a new television studio for KGBT-TV was added by Alfred R. Beck, chief engineer of the station. By 1960 the principals of the station were McHenry Tichenor, president; J.C. Looney of Edinburg,vice-president; and Troy McDaniel, secretary-treasurer and general manager of the station. Tichenor was very active in other areas of economic development in the Rio Grande valley. In the early 1950s he served on the first Cameron County-appointed South Padre Island Park board. This board laid the groundwork for the erection of the first causeway ever to connect the island to the mainland. It was named the Queen Isabella Causeway, and its completion dr

Tsha Handbook →

Howard E. and Mary Butt House

1929

Howard E. and Mary Butt House In 1929 entrepreneur Howard E. Butt moved the headquarters of his developing grocery business to Harlingen. The following year, Howard and his wife, Mary, bought this house from its builders, John and Ruth Townsend, a few months after its completion. During the 1930s, Howard's business (H.E.B. Grocery) grew to more than 28 stores in the Rio Grande Valley and South Texas. Known also for their philanthropy and civic work in Harlingen, Howard and Mary Butt lived here until 1940 but owned the house until 1943. Distinguished by its Palladian windows and spiral entry columns, the architectural style of the house is best described as Italian Renaissance. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2000

Historical Marker →

Lon C. Hill Home

1904

City's first home, built 1904, by the founder, Lon C. Hill, promoter of railroads and irrigation to the lower Rio Grande Valley. Climate-adapted Victorian house. Here valley pioneers met and planned important developments. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980

Historical Marker →

Things to Do in Harlingen

historical 18.4 mi away
Weslaco, Texas (c. 1939, Russell Lee)
historical 23.4 mi away
Brownsville, Texas (c. 1916)

Everything Near Harlingen

252 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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