The modern city arrived on rails. Irrigation companies began watering the Delta lands around 1900, the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway pushed through the ranch in 1904, and on December 5 of that year the McAllen Townsite Company platted a town named for the old rancher. A rival townsite — East McAllen — rose two miles away in 1907, won the post office, and became the McAllen that incorporated in 1911. In 1916, during the border troubles of the Mexican Revolution era, some 20,000 National Guard troops camped here, and the soldier payrolls put the young town permanently on the map.
Then came the boom the palms were planted for. Citrus groves, canneries, and packing sheds spread across the Valley through the 1920s; McAllen adopted a home-rule charter in 1927; and by 1940 the farm-and-oil town of nearly 12,000 was calling itself the City of Palms. The 1941 suspension bridge to Reynosa made it a winter resort and a port of entry, and when oil was found near Reynosa in 1947, the two cities grew together — workers, shoppers, and families moving both ways across the river, a rhythm that has never stopped.
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.
