Site of Monte Christo

The Melado Land Company of Houston platted Monte Christo in 1909, drilled a well and cleared land for 640 experimental farms under manager Marshall McIlhenny. Stores run by A. A. Guerra and Emilio Vela were open by 1911, and a railroad siding came in 1913. The well failed and no new water was found. By 1915 the Handbook of Texas estimates about seventy-five residents, far fewer than the plaque's 1,500. Librado Garza is listed among Mexicans killed at Monte Cristo in the violence after July 1915, undated. The post office closed in 1920.

What the plaque says

Site of Monte Christo (2.5 mi. North) One of the towns that sprang up in the Rio Grande Valley in the early 20th century, Monte Christo was platted in 1909 by the Melado Land Co. Among the first settlers were Otto Woods (1882-1956), who managed the townsite, and Virgil Lott (1878-1960), who published a newspaper called "The Hustler". At its height, Monte Christo had a bank, school, railroad station, cotton gin, two hotels, and a population of 1500. Residents began to move away during the bandit raids of 1914-1916. Others left when the water supply proved inadequate. By 1934 Monte Christo was a ghost town. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of South Texas History — 9.4 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 — 13 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 — 14 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.
• Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — 22 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

• John H. Shary Home — 6.8 mi
• Emilia Schunior Ramirez — 8.4 mi
• Everitt Building — 9.5 mi
• Texas Citrus Fiesta — 9.6 mi