City of Pharr

Pharr adopted a home-rule charter and commission government in 1949, then in 1956 voted down a proposal to merge with McAllen, its larger neighbor to the west. Its population rose from 8,690 in 1950 to 14,106 in 1960. Through the 1960s its factories made irrigation equipment, clay products, mattresses, harvesting machinery and concrete goods. Growth later came partly from annexing nearby colonias, and the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge, opened in 1994, made the city a major commercial port of entry.

What the plaque says

City of Pharr For many centuries, nomadic Coahuiltecans lived in the Lower Rio Grande area. In the 1500s, Spanish explorers came through the region, and the Spanish government began to colonize both sides of the river by the late 1700s. At the close of the U.S.-Mexico War in 1848, the Rio Grande was established as the official boundary. In 1909, John C. Kelly, Henry N. Pharr, W.E. Cage and R.C. Briggs formed the Pharr Townsite Company, platting and registering the new town. Kelly donated lots in the original plat for early churches, including the Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Episcopal and Presbyterian denominations. Pharr schools began in 1911, and the community later joined with San Juan and Alamo to create the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo School District. The city founders were also involved with the Louisiana-Rio Grande Canal Co., organized in 1910 to furnish irrigation and domestic water to 40,000 acres in the Pharr area by means of a Rio Grande pumping plant. The water system led the economy to shift from ranching to crop production, and the railroad, which came through the area in 1905, made it possible to ship produce around the country. The city of Pharr was incorporated in 1916. Given its location at the intersection of two major developing highways and the growth of commercial transportation, Pharr became known as the "Hub City of the Valley." Agricultural shipping and packing businesses were mainstays in the city economy. With the continued growth of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Pharr remains a vital business center, and an international bridge now provides an important commercial link to Mexico. (2004)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of South Texas History — 7.7 mi
  Edinburg's regional museum, begun in 1967 in the 1910 Hidalgo County jail and now telling the Rio Grande's story from fossils and native peoples through steamboats to the 20th century.
• Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — 8.3 mi
  About 2,000 acres of river forest on the Rio Grande's north bank, the surviving part of Benigno Leal's 1834 land grant, kept as a refuge since 1943 where two bird migration routes meet.
• La Lomita Chapel — 9.4 mi
  A small sandstone chapel on the Rio Grande levee, built by Oblate missionaries in 1865 and rebuilt at this site in 1899, the landmark that gave the city of Mission its name.
• Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park — 12 mi
  A 587-acre stand of Rio Grande woodland near Mission, once part of a Spanish porción, given to the state by the Bentsen family in 1944 and now headquarters of the World Birding Center.

More markers nearby

• First Pharr School — steps away
• The Pharr Riot — 0.4 mi
• San Juan Townsite — 1.6 mi
• Tom Mayfield — 1.7 mi