Hilltop Gardens
Monte Alto, Hidalgo County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded in 1939 by Lee and Sherman Ewald, Hilltop Gardens, among the first commercial aloe vera farms in the U.S., started on 100 acres north of La Villa. The Ewalds built their farmhouse atop a small knoll and named the property Hilltop Gardens for its rolling topography. Lee Ewald recognized the medical properties of aloe vera and pioneered its commercial production in the Rio Grande Valley. Hilltop Gardens was incorporated in 1959 and became part of the Global Health industry. lee developed cosmetics using aloe vera gel with the help of her two daughters. She sold this under the name phyllis ann lee sales, incorporated in 1962. Hilltop Gardens is believed to be the first business using aloe vera gel as an ingredient in cosmetics. The Ewald family sold Hilltop Gardens in 1976 to R.C. Benson who moved from Houston to grow aloe vera. By 1981, Benson was growing over 200,000 aloe plants on the property. In 1988, an Econet Company called Aloecorp purchased Hilltop Gardens. It became a part of a corporation of 13 companies named Econet, one of the world’s largest and most technologically advanced producers of aloe vera. The farm operation has become organic and serves the Econet and the wider farming community by developing procedures for organic farming. In 2012, Hilltop Gardens opened to the general public. Hilltop Gardens also contracted a grower in South Africa, where aloe vera originates from, to supply over 200 species of aloe which are now growing on the farm. Hilltop Gardens represents the largest collection of species of aloe in the United States.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1939 by Lee and Sherman Ewald on a hilltop north of La Villa, Hilltop Gardens became one of the first commercial aloe vera farms in the United States, pioneering the crop's cultivation in the Rio Grande Valley. Lee Ewald developed aloe-gel cosmetics with her daughters, marketing them through a company incorporated in 1962 in what is believed to be a first use of aloe gel as a cosmetic ingredient. Under later owners the farm grew to hundreds of thousands of plants and became part of a major aloe-producing corporation, opening to the public in 2012 with the largest U.S. collection of aloe species.
Why it matters
The farm marks the American birthplace of commercial aloe vera agriculture and cosmetics, a niche industry pioneered in large part by a woman entrepreneur.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the late 1930s, the Rio Grande Valley had established itself as one of the country's great agricultural experiment stations. The warm climate and long growing season invited growers to try crops that would fail almost anywhere else in the United States, and the region earned a reputation for turning unlikely plants into commercial ventures.
It was into that spirit of agricultural risk-taking that Hilltop Gardens was born in 1939, on one hundred acres north of La Villa. The founders built their farmhouse atop a small rise and named the place for its gently rolling ground — a homestead and a business at once.
The decades that followed spanned an enormous shift in American life, from the eve of the Second World War through the postwar boom and into the modern era of global commerce. Few farms tracked that arc as vividly as this one, which began as a family gamble on an unusual plant and ended up part of an international industry.
People & events
The founders, Lee and Sherman Ewald, saw something in aloe vera that others had overlooked. Lee recognized the plant's medicinal properties and pioneered its commercial production in the Valley, helping make Hilltop Gardens among the very first commercial aloe vera farms in the United States.
Lee then pushed the idea a decisive step further. Working with her two daughters, she developed cosmetics using aloe vera gel and sold them under her own company, incorporated in 1962 — believed to be the first business to use aloe gel as a cosmetic ingredient. A family farm had become a family enterprise, with a woman entrepreneur and her daughters at its center.
The farm changed hands and kept growing. The Ewald family sold Hilltop Gardens in 1976 to R. C. Benson, who moved from Houston to grow aloe and, by 1981, was tending more than 200,000 plants. In 1988 the operation was purchased by Aloecorp, part of the Econet group of companies, and became a major, technologically advanced aloe producer. It later turned to organic methods, opened to the public in 2012, and — through a grower in South Africa — brought in over 200 species of aloe, growing into the largest collection of aloe species in the country.
Its place in the American story
Hilltop Gardens marks a genuine American first: the birthplace of commercial aloe vera agriculture in the United States. An entire niche of farming and manufacturing that many people now take for granted can be traced back to a single hilltop in South Texas.
Its significance is doubled by who drove it. In an era when women rarely received credit as agricultural or industrial innovators, Lee Ewald not only helped pioneer a crop but built a cosmetics business on it, alongside her daughters. That places the farm in the larger story of women's entrepreneurship in American industry.
The farm's long arc — from a family homestead to part of a multinational corporation with one of the world's most advanced aloe operations — also mirrors the broader story of American agriculture in the twentieth century, as small, inventive ventures were folded into global enterprises. The move to organic methods and the assembling of a vast species collection show that same restless drive to lead, carried into a new century.
If you visit
Set atop its namesake knoll north of La Villa, Hilltop Gardens offers something you will not find at an ordinary farm: rows upon rows of aloe, and a living collection said to be the largest gathering of aloe species in the United States. For anyone curious about plants, it is a rare chance to see just how varied a single family of succulents can be.
As you look over the fields, hold the whole timeline in mind: a 1939 gamble on an unfamiliar crop, a woman and her daughters turning gel into cosmetics, hundreds of thousands of plants under a later owner, and finally a globe-spanning collection drawn in part from aloe's ancestral home overseas.
The farm opened to the general public in 2012, so it welcomes visitors — but check current visiting arrangements before you go, since a working farm's access can change with the seasons. It makes a memorable stop for a traveler who likes their history rooted, literally, in the ground.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Lee Ewald
- · Sherman Ewald
- · R. C. Benson
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