McAllen Post Office
McAllen, Hidalgo County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1935, this was the sixth location of the McAllen Post Office after its creation in 1907. The facility was dedicated on January 22, 1936, and served as a postal facility until 1957. Since 1958, the building has been used for a variety of purposes, including Federal and city office space. The Spanish colonial revival structure features a baroque frontispiece around the front door, corbelled cornice, and red tile roof. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1986.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the federal government built this Spanish colonial revival post office in 1935 and dedicated it in January 1936, McAllen was a fast-growing town on the Texas–Mexico border that had already outgrown five earlier postal quarters since 1907. The building's baroque frontispiece, corbelled cornice, and red tile roof reflect the regional revival style that shaped much South Texas public architecture of the era. After serving the mail until 1957, it was repurposed for federal and city offices and named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1986.
Why it matters
Depression-era federal post offices anchored civic identity in America's growing towns, and this one records both McAllen's rise and the distinctive Spanish colonial revival architecture of the border Southwest.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Vela Building
Hidalgo, TX
In 1904 Crisoforo Vela and his wife Florinda moved to Hidalgo, and within a few years he took over the ferry and rowboat service linking the town with Reynosa, Mexico. That river crossing was a key commercial artery in the early growth of the Rio Grande Valley, and the Vela family ran it until the first Reynosa–Hidalgo bridge opened in 1926. Vela lived in this house until his death in 1932, and it has remained in his family for generations.
P.P. Ackley and the Texas Chisholm Trail
Donna, TX
Peter Preston Ackley rode the great Texas cattle trails of the 1870s and 1880s, driving longhorns north to the Kansas railheads that fed the nation's beef markets. Decades later he became the era's memorial-keeper, founding the Texas Longhorn Chisholm Trail Association and planting dozens of metal and granite markers across several states, Canada, and Mexico. Wintering in Donna, he set a marker here and hung a sign reading "End of the Chisholm Trail" outside his home.
Penitas
Penitas, TX
Peñitas—"Little Pebbles," named for local gravel—grew from the mid-18th-century colonization of José de Escandón, who in 1749 settled families on the Reynosa land grant along the Rio Grande. On the common lands north of the river, ranching communities took root, protected by the small mission of San Joaquín del Monte that ministered to Indigenous people and settlers alike. A prosperous salt trade, Spanish porciones granted in the 1760s, and later a steamboat landing and railroad stop carried the community into the modern era.
Run
Donna, TX
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.