Site of Casa de Palmas

In 1956 Fidel Castro crossed the Rio Grande near McAllen and spent the next day at the Casa de Palmas with Carlos Prío Socarrás, the exiled former president of Cuba, according to Time magazine. Prío, who had been ousted by Fulgencio Batista's coup, promised arms and cash for an expedition against the dictator. Accounts differ on how much he gave. Lightning struck the south tower in 1973, and fire destroyed much of the tower and its attic before the hotel was rebuilt.

What the plaque says

Site of Casa de Palmas The town of McAllen began developing after the arrival of the railroad in 1905. Introduction of an irrigation system made vegetable farming possible. Soon there was a hotel, a grocery store, a Presbyterian church, a bank, and a weekly newspaper. In 1916 after bandits caused border trouble 12,000 soldiers were sent here to restore law and order. Business boomed with the increased population. Among the new facilities was the Casa de Palmas Hotel, opened in 1918. This fine hotel served as a business, social, and civic center for the Rio Grande Valley. (1979)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• La Lomita Chapel — 6.8 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 — 8.1 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.
• Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park — 9.2 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.
• Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — 10 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

• Archer Park — steps away
• Campsite of the "Fighting 69th" — 0.3 mi
• Bethel Baptist Church — 0.9 mi
• Floyd H. (Slats) Rodgers — 1.7 mi