McAllen Ranch

In September 1915 raiders struck the McAllen Ranch, and the version long told says Texas Rangers arrived the next day and ended the trouble. Refusing to Forget lists five men killed in the raid on September 24, unnamed in its source, and credits their deaths to James B. McAllen, the owner. The film Border Bandits rests on Roland Warnock's 1974 account of Rangers shooting two unarmed men in the back. None of this appears on the plaque. The ranch is private land, and the highway marker is the place to stop.

What the plaque says

McAllen Ranch The McAllen Ranch has historic ties to Spanish Texas, when this region was part of Nuevo Santander, a colonial area founded by José de Escandón along the lower Rio Grande. In 1790, José Manuel Gómez of Reynosa and Moncolova received the vast (95,000 acres) Santa Anita land grant. He built fences, worker housing, water wells at San Juanito and Santa Anita, and raised cattle, sheep, goats and horses. He wed Gregoria Ballí Domínguez, a widow with two sons, who inherited the majority of the Santa Anita. A niece, María Salomé Ballí de la Garza, also came to acquire a share of the grant. In 1848, Salomé married Matamoros merchant John Young, and they bought remaining portions of the Gómez grant, as well as additional land. Upon Young's death in 1859, Salomé managed the estate with Young's associate, Irishman John McAllen, whom she wed in 1861. They bought remaining rights in the Santa Anita, reuniting the grant. Salomé's sons, John J. Young and James Ballí McAllen, worked with John McAllen to operate the ranch, which supplied beef, tallow, hides and refuge to both Confederate and Union troops during the Civil War. At one time, the family managed more than 160,000 acres. Upon Salomé's death in 1898, the two half-brothers divided the land, with Young inheriting the eastern Santa Anita portion and McAllen the western San Juanito portion, which he ran with his father as the McAllen Ranch under the SM (for Salomé Ballí McAllen) brand. James died in 1916, leaving the ranch to his widow, Margaret, and their four children. They and their descendants continued operating the ranch, which received honors as one of the oldest Texas ranches in continuous operation by the same family. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of South Texas History — 23 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.

More markers nearby

• Bazán and Longoria Murders — 12 mi
• El Sal del Rey — 15 mi
• Site of Monte Christo — 18 mi
• Emilia Schunior Ramirez — 23 mi