People have lived along this stretch of the river since long before any survey: the Coahuiltecan peoples made the Tamaulipan brushland home. In 1797 the Spanish crown granted the Santa Anita Ranch to José Manuel Gómez, and the land passed down through the Ballí family for generations. Salomé Ballí, heir to the grant, married the Irish-born businessman John McAllen in 1861, and the spread became the McAllen Ranch — sheep, cattle, and brush country running down to the Rio Grande, with the site of the future city inside its fences.
That rhythm is the culture. McAllen sits at the heart of Tejano South Texas — a bilingual, overwhelmingly Mexican-American valley where conjunto accordions and Tejano music grew up in the dance halls, where la frontera is not a line but a way of life, and where family trees have branches on both banks of the river. The Valley's own name for itself — el Valle — says it plainly: one valley, two countries, one community.
Why People Visit McAllen
McAllen offers something rare — a subtropical Texas city where world-class birding, citrus country, and a living bi-national culture all sit within easy reach. Visitors come for the palms and the birds, stay for the food and the warmth, and leave understanding why this corner of Texas calls itself the City of Palms.
