Former Station Site of Spiderweb Railroad

Progreso's station was built for a boom that did not last. The Borderland Sugar Company planted cane here during World War I, and in 1920 a plantation company bought 6,271 acres. A freeze in 1925 discouraged sugar, so in 1927 the Progreso Development Company bought the land for citrus and a townsite, entertaining buyers from Houston and Chicago at a "land party" house. The 1929 crash and a hurricane in 1933 followed, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation took over in 1935. Freezes in 1949 and 1951 killed the orchards, and growers went back to sugarcane.

What the plaque says

Former Station Site of Spiderweb Railroad The agricultural boom that marked the early development of this area was due in large part to the San Benito & Rio Grande Valley Railroad. Begun in 1912 by Missouri native Sam A. Robertson (1867-1938), it was called the Spiderweb Railroad because of its intricate network of lines and spurs. The railroad built a station here in 1926 as the hub of a community and citrus production center planned by the Progreso Development Co. Through early valley shipping centers such as Progreso, local produce was first transported to markets nationwide. (1982)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — 11 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.
• Museum of South Texas History — 19 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.
• La Lomita Chapel — 24 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 — 27 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

• Progreso — steps away
• Relampago Ranch — 2.5 mi
• El Horcon Tract and Rio Rico — 4.2 mi
• Camp Llano Grande — 4.4 mi