Los Ebanos Ferry Crossing

Few crossings still depend on muscle. The ferry covers roughly a hundred feet of river along a cable anchored to an ebony tree, and three or four men lean on a rope to haul it across. In 2005 Captain Oscar Simo of the Reyna family, which has run it since 1950, said its 25-ton limit means three cars. Residents use it to reach McAllen's stores and doctors, avoiding a round trip of more than forty miles to the Rio Grande City bridge. High water can close it, especially when the river is flooded for irrigation.

What the plaque says

Los Ebanos Ferry Crossing Apparently this is an ancient ford. First recorded usage was by Spanish explorers and colonists under Jose de Escandon in 1740s on the Rio Grande. A salt trail led from here to El Sal del Rey (40 miles northeast). The ford was used by Mexican war troops, 1846; by Texas Rangers chasing cattle rustlers, 1874; by smugglers in many eras, especially during the American prohibition years, 1920s and '30s. The ferry and inspection station were established in 1950. Named for the ebony trees here, this is known as the only government-licensed, hand-pulled ferry on any boundary of the United States. (1974)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 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.
• La Lomita Chapel — 16 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.
• Museum of South Texas History — 25 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 — 29 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.

More markers nearby

• Nellie Leo Schunior School — 5.1 mi
• Penitas — 12 mi
• Leo Najo — 14 mi
• Texas Citrus Fiesta — 15 mi