TexSun Corporation

🏛️The era

In the 1920s and 1930s the Rio Grande Valley went citrus-crazy. Irrigation had already turned ranchland into farmland, and growers found that the region's mild winters suited oranges and grapefruit. Groves spread fast across the Valley.

The problem was success. The groves produced more fruit than growers could sell. Getting perishable fruit to distant markets took packing, shipping, and brand recognition that individual farmers could not manage alone.

This happened just as the Great Depression hit. Across rural America, farmers were turning to cooperatives, pooling their crops and their bargaining power to survive hard times. Valley citrus growers did the same.

👥People & events

In 1932, seventeen citrus associations joined forces as the Rio Grande Valley Citrus Exchange. Together they could do what none of them could do alone: market Valley fruit under brands people would recognize.

The exchange sold its products under the TexSun and Tex Maid labels. Over time it grew into a full industrial operation. It added a box company to make its own shipping crates, plus juicing and canning plants. It even built a dehydration plant that turned leftover citrus pulp into cattle feed, so almost nothing from the fruit went to waste.

The business kept changing as the century went on. It became a public corporation in 1956 and a subsidiary company in 1971. Valley citrus faced hard times in those decades, including damaging freezes that hit the groves.

The Weslaco plant shut down in 1991. By then it had been part of the Valley economy for nearly sixty years, and it had played a major role in the growth of the Texas citrus industry.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

TexSun's story is a chapter in the larger story of American agricultural cooperatives. In the early twentieth century, growers of fruit, dairy, and grain in many regions banded together to process, brand, and market their own products. Some of America's best-known food labels began that way.

It also shows how farming became industrial. A crop that once left the farm as loose fruit came to support box making, canning, juicing, and by-product processing. Industries like these created jobs and helped towns like Weslaco grow.

Thanks partly to operations like this one, Texas grapefruit and oranges became products people bought nationwide. The Valley earned a place on the country's citrus map next to Florida and California.

🧭If you visit

The plant closed in 1991, so come to this marker to picture something that's gone. In its prime, this would have been a busy place, with trucks of fruit arriving, crates being built, and juice and canned goods going out.

As you drive around Weslaco and the nearby towns, watch for citrus groves. Many still line the roads, and they connect directly to the industry the exchange helped build. Depending on the season, you may find local fruit stands selling Valley grapefruit and oranges, and they're worth stopping for.

TexSun fits well into a Valley road trip about farming and irrigation. Combine it with the region's canal and town-founding history, and you'll understand how water, rail, and cooperatives built the economy you see around you.