Louisiana-Rio Grande Canal Company
Pharr, Hidalgo County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Wisconsin native John Closner established the first steam-powered irrigation system in the lower Rio Grande Valley in 1895. Closner successfully grew sugar cane and entered a sample for judging at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. The award-winning sugar cane and Closner's promotion of the lower Rio Grande convinced a number of financiers and agriculturists to invest in the region's irrigation and development possibilities. In 1909 H. N. Pharr, J. C. Kelly, John C. Conway, and A. W. Roth formed the Louisiana-Rio Grande (LRG) Canal Company to transform about 40,000 acres of arid land in Hidalgo County into productive farmland. To do this the company built two pumping stations to divert water from the Rio Grande through an elaborate irrigation system to a planned community of small farmsteads. The agricultural success of the LRG Canal Company, its successor the Hidalgo County Water Improvement District #2, and other similar operations in the region resulted in an influx of Anglo farmers and settlers from the midwestern U.S. into this mainly Hispanic region of Texas. The bountiful harvests propelled the Rio Grande Valley to the forefront of Texas agriculture by the mid-20th century and earned the region a reputation as the "Winter Garden" of Texas. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845 - 1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After Wisconsin native John Closner built the lower Rio Grande Valley's first steam-powered irrigation system in 1895 and won a prize for his sugar cane at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, investors poured in. In 1909, H. N. Pharr and partners formed the Louisiana-Rio Grande Canal Company, building pumping stations to draw Rio Grande water across some 40,000 acres of arid land and turn it into farms and planned communities. The harvests that followed made the Valley the "Winter Garden" of Texas and drew a wave of Anglo settlers into a largely Hispanic region.
Why it matters
This is the engineering story behind the Rio Grande Valley's transformation into one of America's great agricultural regions — and the demographic shift that irrigation set in motion.
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Related people
- · John Closner
- · H. N. Pharr
Related events
- · St. Louis World's Fair of 1904
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Once part of the Cavazos family's mid-1800s Asadores Ranch, this stretch of the Rio Grande Valley was transformed at the turn of the 20th century when East Texas rice farmers and other newcomers organized irrigation companies and coaxed the railroad into the area. The tiny community of Run took its name from postmaster Ed Ruthven, whose store, a school, and his brother's irrigation pumps briefly anchored local life. A devastating flood in 1909 sent many residents drifting toward nearby Donna, and Run faded soon after.
Don Florencio Saenz Homestead
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On land his family held by Spanish grant, Don Florencio Saenz built his homestead in 1902 as the headquarters of the sprawling Toluca Ranch, which once reached seventeen miles north from the Rio Grande. From here he ran a mercantile store and championed cattle ranching and irrigated river farming as the future of the lower Valley. In 1915, amid the cross-border turmoil of the Mexican Revolution era, raiders tried to burn the house and were driven off by U.S. soldiers in a fight that cost a private his life.
The American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation System
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In 1905, at the dawn of the Lower Rio Grande Valley's transformation into an agricultural powerhouse, developer B. F. Yoakum gathered investors to turn arid brushland into irrigated farmland. Their company bought a quarter-million acres and built the townsite of Mercedes as its headquarters, and by 1908 pumps were lifting river water into a growing web of canals. Within a dozen years the system had swelled to three main canals and five pumping plants, and it passed to public water districts in 1930 that still serve Valley farmers today.