Relampago Ranch

By 1860 Thaddeus Rhodes had built a ranch house half a mile north of the river and was serving as deputy collector and inspector at a port of entry there. José María Mora ran the general store. In 1902 Rhodes sold 2,655 acres to the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company, whose subsidiary platted a townsite in 1908. A flood in 1909 doomed the plan. A post office ran from 1910 to 1918, and Mora's store closed in 1927 after the death of Isabel de la Viña de Mora.

What the plaque says

Relampago Ranch Originally part of a Spanish land grant, Relampago (lightning) Ranch community lay along the stage and military route from Rio Grande City to Brownsville. In 1852 Thaddeus Rhodes (1828-1904) acquired acreage here when he came as Hidalgo county clerk. Later he served as commissioner and judge. He and Jose Maria Mora (1824-1884), who bought adjoining land about 1856, helped bring economic and social stability. Mora and later his son Melchor, a deputy sheriff and Texas Ranger, farmed, ranched and had the only general store in the area. Descendants still live on the property. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — 13 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 — 21 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 — 26 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.
• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 28 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.

More markers nearby

• El Horcon Tract and Rio Rico — 1.8 mi
• Former Station Site of Spiderweb Railroad — 2.5 mi
• Progreso — 2.5 mi
• Battle of La Bolsa — 3.2 mi