Hidalgo County, Texas
McAllen is home to 26 official Texas Historical Commission markers — each one telling a piece of the city’s story. Browse the markers below, then find them on the map and discover more nearby with RoadHistorical.
Famed New York Infantry Regiment. Encamped in McAllen during 1916-1917 bandit troubles, guarding the border and preventing the smuggling of arms across Rio Grande to Pancho Villa. Tour of duty here seasoned the men for…
View on map ↗The steamboat "Bessie", last of the Mifflin Kenedy-Richard King Rio Grande shipping fleet of the mid-1800s, carried this 400-pound bell instead of a whistle. After its final trip on the river in 1902, the bell "Bessie"…
View on map ↗This site was a city park with antelope, javelina, and deer before a group a businessmen decided McAllen needed a hotel to serve as a business and social center. The Casa De Palmas, a three-story structure with a red…
View on map ↗The town of McAllen began developing after the arrival of the railroad in 1905. Introduction of an irrigation system made vegetable farming possible. Soon there was a hotel, a grocery store, a Presbyterian church, a…
View on map ↗This one-block-square tract of land was deeded to the city of McAllen for use as a public park in 1917, six years after the town was incorporated. The donor, Mayor Oliver Percy Archer (1869-1930), was a prominent local…
View on map ↗One of the larger adobe homes in the state, Quinta Mazatlan was designed and built by Jason Chilton Matthews (1887-1964) during the late 1930s. Adobe blocks used in construction were made at this site. A composer,…
View on map ↗Built in 1935, this was the sixth location of the McAllen Post Office after its creation in 1907. The facility was dedicated on January 22, 1936, and served as a postal facility until 1957. Since 1958, the building has…
View on map ↗Priests from La Lomita Chapel in nearby Mission ministered to Catholics at McAllen from 1908 until 1911, when a mission was begun here and a wood frame chapel was built. The congregation remained under the guidance of…
View on map ↗The San Antonio & Aransas Pass (subsidiary of the Southern Pacific) Railway laid track south to the Rio Grande Valley and McAllen in 1927. This passenger depot, designed by railroad architect Leonard B. McCoy, opened in…
View on map ↗The earliest record of Methodist church activity in the lower Rio Grande Valley dates to 1849. Circuit-riding ministers served an area along the Rio Grande from Brownsville to Roma. In 1909 the Rev. C.W . Godwyn was…
View on map ↗This church began with McAllen's first Presbyterian worship service, held by the Rev. M.W. Doggett in a local lumberyard in 1908. Dr. W. A. King and George Pollack were first elders. Although adversely affected by the…
View on map ↗This lodge, organized by Master Mason R. M. Bounds and about 30 other Masons, was chartered on December 8, 1915. Meetings were held in the Joseph and Osborne buildings, two early downtown commercial structures, prior to…
View on map ↗Organized in Pharr in 1916 by the Rev. Paul Birkman and five charter members, St. Paul Lutheran Church moved to McAllen in 1917. Early worship service, conducted in German, were held in the First Methodist Church. The…
View on map ↗The city of McAllen was founded in 1904 and incorporated in 1911. The first medical practitioner was Dr. J.B.F. McMillan who arrived in 1906. Dr. Frank E. Osborn built a two story building in 1918 with a pharmacy on the…
View on map ↗(March 7, 1889 - July 5, 1956) Daring stunt pilot "Slats" Rodgers developed a childhood interest in kites into a career in aviation that included barnstorming, bootlegging, arms smuggling, payroll flying and crop…
View on map ↗Samuel Lynn and Marjorie Williams Miller were early McAllen leaders. Sam had interests in a nursery, banking and real estate, and was co-owner of the Hidalgo International Bridge. In 1930, he donated 109 acres of land…
View on map ↗Asociacion del Cementerio la Piedad Established 1895 Historic Texas Cemetery - 2005
View on map ↗This noteworthy Moderne style commercial building remains a distinctive McAllen attraction. Morris Randall Nelson built and owned the building, designed in 1949 for the use of the J.C. Penney Company. Nelson, born in…
View on map ↗In 1908, just one year after McAllen began to develop, a group of residents established this cemetery on land donated by the Hidalgo Canal Company. The oldest marked grave here dates to 1909. The McAllen Chamber of…
View on map ↗Brothers Enrique (1886-1935) and Modesto (1888-1927) Guerra opened a grocery business in the new town of McAllen in 1908. Their father, Diódoro (1867-1932), joined them in 1910, and the men established D. Guerra and…
View on map ↗This burial ground, which predates McAllen, likely began as a small ranch cemetery in the 1800s. The earliest known burial here, in 1895, is of Gertrudis Cavazos. Most of the property was deeded by the Arnold family;…
View on map ↗The McAllen School Board authorized construction of Lamar High School in 1938, through a bond election and funding from the Public Works Administration. Architect Marion Lee Waller’s original design included an L-shaped…
View on map ↗During WWII, because of rationing, Andrew J. Paris (1919-1997) and his family had no sweets to sell in their Detroit, MI. tobacconist shop. In 1942, in Mexico City, Paris found an ample supply of candies and chewing gum…
View on map ↗THEODORE ROOSEVELT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL McALLEN WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1904 AND A SMALL “COMMON” SCHOOL SERVED THE COMMUNITY. THE TOWN WAS INCORPORATED IN 1911 AND McALLEN COMMON SCHOOL DISTRICT WAS FORMED IN 1915. THE McALLEN…
View on map ↗In 1936, when Eugene and Georgia Hubbard found no churches for African Americans in McAllen, they established Little Bethel Baptist Church on the corner of Fresno and 18th Streets. It was named Little Bethel as Bethel…
View on map ↗This house was built in 1933 for Percy Herman (1884-1967), a major influence in the development of McAllen. Herman was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and in 1910, he married Stella H. Lazarus. Herman soon moved his family to…
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