City of Del Rio
Del Rio, Val Verde County, Texas
Marker Inscription
City of Del Rio Del Rio was selected as Val Verde County seat when the county was organized in 1885, but it was another 20 years before the first city government was established. In 1905, city residents voted to incorporate, and James McLymont was elected first mayor. Although records from the early 1900s are scarce, there are indications that Del Rio unincorporated after 1906. In November 1911, voters elected to incorporate again under the city commission form of government. A home rule charter was adopted in 1918, allowing for greater flexibility in governing. The city commission remained in place until a 1967 election set up a council-manager system of government for Del Rio. (2002)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Val Verde County was carved out of the arid borderlands of far West Texas in 1885, the dusty settlement of Del Rio was chosen as its seat of government. Yet formal city government came slowly: residents first voted to incorporate in 1905, electing James McLymont as their first mayor, then apparently dissolved and reincorporated in 1911 under a commission form. A home-rule charter in 1918 and a shift to a council-manager system in 1967 trace the community's steady maturation from frontier waystation to established border city.
Why it matters
Del Rio's halting road to self-government mirrors how countless Western towns improvised civic institutions long before their populations could sustain them, filling in the map of an expanding nation one incorporation vote at a time.
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Related people
- · James McLymont
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First United Methodist Church of Del Rio
Del Rio, TX
Six settlers organized a Methodist congregation in the border town of Del Rio in 1882, meeting first in members' homes before building a frame chapel on the edge of town. The church grew with the city—swelling as soldiers trained at nearby Camp Michie during World War I and again with the opening of Laughlin Air Force Base—and today carries on missions at home and abroad.
Canal System of Del Rio
Del Rio, TX
Watered by San Felipe Springs, this arid borderland was irrigated first by Indian and Spanish inhabitants and then, from about 1869, by Anglo-American landowners who formed the San Felipe Agricultural, Manufacturing & Irrigation Company. By 1871 their dams and canals—the five-mile "Madre Ditch" and the shorter "San Felipe Ditch"—brought water to thousands of acres under an 1875 state charter. The system fed Del Rio's farms and the growing town alike, and it still carries water today.
Glenn-Dowe House
Del Rio, TX
Local contractor Daniel Glenn built this brick residence in 1900–01, working a band of decorative brickwork into its design, and sold it in 1901 to the widow Bessie Chisum. In 1906 she married Luke Dowe, a border peace officer who served first with the Texas Rangers' Frontier Battalion and later with U.S. Customs. The Dowes made the house their home for fifty years.
Sacred Heart Catholic Church
Del Rio, TX
Before this limestone church rose in 1891-92, Catholics in the border town of Del Rio gathered for Mass in private homes and a simple wooden building on this spot. Guided by the Oblate fathers, the mission grew into Sacred Heart parish in 1895, and the Gothic Revival structure was enlarged and remodeled in 1929. Its stained-glass windows later followed the congregation to a new church dedicated in 1969.