Everitt Building

Closner built this building, and he also arranged for Edinburg to be a county seat. In 1906 he and William Sprague ran a railroad branch toward the Chapin townsite, named for Judge Dennis Chapin, and donated 1,400 acres. After an election on October 8, 1908, county records were taken from Hidalgo overnight with wagons and mule teams, and tents stood ready to receive them so objectors could not block the move. Chapin's role in a homicide led to a new name in 1911, honoring Scotland, the birthplace of John Young.

What the plaque says

Everitt Building One of the earliest commercial ventures in Edinburg, this building was completed in 1910 by John Closner (1853-1932), a founder of the townsite. Its first tenant was the Rev. W. O. Miller, who operated a hardware and machinery store. During World War I, it was used as a Red Cross workshop. In 1920 the property was acquired by E. M. Everitt, who used the building primarily as a grocery store. Among the building's numerous other tenants were the Masonic Lodge and the Golden Jersey Creamery. An Edinburg landmark, the structure stands as part of the city's early economic history. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of South Texas History — steps away
  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.
• La Lomita Chapel — 14 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.
• Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — 15 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.
• Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park — 16 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

• Emilia Schunior Ramirez — 1.1 mi
• The Pharr Riot — 7.3 mi
• City of Pharr — 7.6 mi
• John H. Shary Home — 7.7 mi