National Register Listing

McAllen Ranch

a.k.a. Rancho San Juanito; Santa Anita

FM 1017, 13 mi. W of TX 281, Linn, TX

The McAllen Ranch, also known by its Spanish Colonial name of Rancho San Juanito, is a working commercial cattle ranch located approximately thirty-two miles northwest of Edinburg, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. The ranch comprises the original homestead and surrounding 32,537.5 acre agricultural tract awarded to Manuel Gómez by the Spanish viceroy after initial application in 1790 and approval the subsequent year. San Juanito is the western half of the original 95,000-acre grant known as the Santa Anita. The ranch was developed by Gómez until his death when the property was conveyed to the two heirs of his widow, María Gregoria Ballí de Dominguez Gómez. The Domínguez heirs, Antonio and Estanislado, managed the land then inherited by their children, one of whom conveyed a modest, undivided portion to María Salomé Ballí, a cousin. Upon her marriage to Scottish immigrant John Young, Salomé began acquiring other undivided interests in Santa Anita. After the death of her first husband, she married Irish immigrant John McAllen, and together they continued to buy further shares until Santa Anita was wholly owned by her. Her two sons, half-brothers John Young and James Ballí McAllen, asked to partition the lands and in 1898 the ranch was divided along a line running north to south, splitting the ranch into two halves, the west known as San Juanito.

The property is particularly unique for two reasons: the property has been maintained by the same family for 216 years, and many of the original Spanish Colonial structures dating from 1790 remain intact. The same family members who held the ranch title since 1790 constituted some of the region's early history-makers.

Today, the McAllen Ranch continues to thrive, while holding together the resources that embody the distinctive and significant characteristics of the historic South Texas ranch. Thus, the McAllen Ranch is nominated to the National Register in the areas of exploration and settlement, agriculture, architecture, and archeology for prehistoric and historic and prehistoric archeological deposits.

The period of significance for the McAllen Ranch extends to 1956 when several simple sheds, barns, and buildings were erected on the property. These resources were built to support the building and maintenance of newer pasture fencing, forage collecting, and the support of the ranch's cowhands.

The McAllen ranch in the Rio Grande Valley is comprised of portions of the Santa Anita grant, first granted to inhabitants of the Spanish province of Nuevo Santander, also known on early maps as the Wild Horse Desert. José Manuel Gómez was an early settler living in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, one of the first towns in the province. Gómez, a native of Coahuila, came to Reynosa in 1777 on the heels of colonizer José de Escandón, the count of Sierra Gorda and viceroy of Nuevo Santander who founded the first settlements along the lower Rio Grande in 1748. Gómez applied for and occupied the Santa Anita land in 1790, made improvements on the ranch, built fences, drilled wells, and constructed houses for workers. Remnants of some of his hand-dug water wells can still be found. After improving the property for seven years, he petitioned the king of Spain for the land in 1797 and received it in a formal ceremony on August 3, 1799. The Gómez grant covered 21 1/2 leagues or approximately 95,000 acres.

At Santa Anita, Gómez raised herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses and continued to aid in Spain's endeavor to colonize Nuevo Santander. He married Gregoria Ballí Domínguez, a widow with two sons; they had no more children. Life at the Santa Anita ranch was as harsh and unrelenting as in most frontier settlements, and it required sturdy, dedicated people to survive. Provisions were brought by oxcart from Reynosa and Matamoros, and salt had to be hauled from La Sal del Rey, a huge salt lake eighteen miles to the east that served the entire border region. Salt for the cattle was hauled to Santa Anita in this same manner until the 1920s. The ranch was considered a good stopping place on the trail from the Rio Grande. Many maps prior to 1860 show the wells of Santa Anita and San Juanito as viable watering places.

The ranch was developed by Gómez until his death in 1803 when the property was conveyed to his wife, María Gregoria Ballí de Dominguez Gómez, and their two sons. The Domínguez heirs, Antonio and Estanislado, managed the land then inherited by their children, one of whom conveyed a modest, undivided portion to María Salomé Ballí, a cousin.

The Mexican War of 1846 brought an influx of traders, artisans, and new families to the lower Rio Grande, an isolated region that knew only Native Americans and Spaniards for the previous century. One of these emigrants was Scotsman John Young who came to Matamoros during the war and eventually settled in Brownsville where he operated a general store.

In 1848, Salomé Ballí and John Young married. After establishing themselves in Matamoros, the couple expanded their enterprises into the new town of Brownsville, where they opened a general store and trading center. With profits from Young's riverboat shipping partnership with Charles Stillman, Mifflin Kenedy, and Richard King, as well as their own pursuits in mercantile trade, Young and Salomé increased her ranch holdings. When Texas entered the Union they were able to purchase rights (derechos) from her cousins who found themselves with land north of the boundary of the Rio Grande and little means to manage it.

As opportunities emerged, Young moved his activities upriver and acquired as much land as he could. In 1850, after Texas became part of the United States, the Bourland-Miller Commission came from Austin to verify the Spanish land grants of the area. The family presented all of the original documents proving ownership of the Santa Anita grant, but as the commission carried the original records back to Austin for verification, the steamer Anson sank with all of the papers. The family presented all of its remaining affidavits, but confirmation of title was delayed for some years. Governor Oran M. Roberts finally made the validation of the Santa Anita grant in 1882. Hidalgo County was established in 1852, and the first recorded brand in the county records was a "JY" used by Young at the Santa Anita.

In 1859, John Young died, leaving his estate to Salomé. The estate included the Santa Anita ranch and other ranching properties, including many acres along the river. Salomé Young called upon John Young's former business associate, Irishman John McAllen, to assist her in managing the holdings. McAllen was born in Londonderry, Ireland, in 1826, and after working as a cabin boy and surveyor, immigrated to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, in 1849. There he met John Young, who employed him as a clerk in his store in Brownsville. McAllen began to pursue his own business affairs and was the first in the area to attempt to grow sugarcane commercially. He built the first sugar mill on the Rio Grande in 1858, along with one of the first cotton gins in about 1862.

In 1861, McAllen and Salomé Ballí married and they continued operating the Santa Anita and other properties together. They had a son, James Ballí McAllen, born in 1862. He and John J. Young (from her first marriage to John Young) eventually ran the ranch together with John McAllen.

During the Civil War, soldiers made camp near the water wells at the Santa Anita ranch. Buttons, spurs, buckles, and musket balls indicate that the campsites formed a line from La Sal del Ray to Fort Ringgold at Rio Grande City. McAllen, being a British subject, never had to take an oath to the South or North. The ranch had contracts to supply both Union and Confederate troops at Fort Brown, and there is evidence that the couple allowed various camps, both Union and Confederate, to take refuge at the ranch during times of plague and disease along the coast. Young also participated in the contraband Confederate cotton trade conducted through Brownsville and Matamoros. His mercantile trade flourished through the war's end.

South Texas during the period between 1860 and 1870 was a no-man's land. In the Nueces Strip, the area between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers, outlaws and bandits rustled cattle that they drove to Mexico. Hides in Mexico were more valuable than stock on the hoof. At the Santa Anita ranch during this period more than 8,000 cattle were stolen. John McAllen claimed, "not 5 percent of the cattle are left in the County." Eventually Capt. Leander H. McNelly and others came to the region to suppress the border bandits, at times using controversial methods to tame rustlers.

The great cattle drives to Kansas and Indian Territory began in the 1880s, and the ranch drove herds north for pasturing. Steers were also sent south to meet Capt. Richard King's steamboats on the Rio Grande; however, these animals became provisions for the encamped army at Fort Brown and beyond. During this period the ranch holdings, livestock, wells, and fences were improved and increased. Various earmarks and brands - JY, YJ, and the clover leaf-were used in driving cattle to Abilene, Kansas. By 1885, John McAllen and John J. Young had consolidated the various interests held by other family members into one partnership. Together, at the peak of their holdings, they managed more than 160,000 acres.

In 1903 the Hidalgo Irrigation Company was organized bringing water to the region and value to the arid land. In 1904 a rail extension of the St Louis Brownsville Rail Road came through the area and John and James McAllen and John Young donated land so the rail would cross their land. The McAllens and Young, along with other investors then formed the McAllen townsite company and established the town on land formerly within the ranch's boundary.

Salomé Ballí McAllen died in 1898, and her interests were divided between her sons. Five years later a partition suit divided the Santa Anita in half. The Youngs received the eastern half, including the Santa Anita headquarters, and the McAllens took the western half, known as San Juanito. The McAllens adopted the SM brand, which has been in constant use since then. In 1923 the Youngs sold most of their interest. San Juanito became the headquarters of the McAllen Ranch, and John McAllen, with his son James, operated it until the elder McAllen's death in 1913.

Before his death, John with his son James upgraded the livestock from longhorn to Hereford cattle and experimented with several species of exotic plants, including many varieties of grapes, citrus fruits, figs, olives, date palms, and ornamentals. They even considered raising exotic animals such as camels and ostriches.

With the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, widespread violence in Mexico spilled north across the border. Systematic attacks on farmers and ranchers disrupted business, causing hundreds to flee to the towns from the countryside. A separatist group calling for a Mexican-American state in the border region conducted raids on both sides of the border, derailing trains, starting fires, and executing people who did not claim German ancestry.

On September 24, 1915, James Ballí McAllen virtually alone at the San Juanito headquarters was attacked by a group of bandits, thought to number between seven and twelve men. Warned that they were armed and waiting at the front of the house, gunfire exploded. James fought the attackers bitterly, aided by his housekeeper, María Agráz, who reloaded one shotgun as he fired the other. James managed to defend himself, killing one attacker and fatally wounding another. The men retreated into the brush. The house was riddled with bullets, later identified as those of German Mausers.

Shortly afterward, the U. S. government intercepted and deciphered a telegram from German ministers to Mexican officials promising that if they would join Germany and encourage Japan to join the Central Powers, Germany would assist Mexico in regaining lost territories in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico by conquest. Known as the Zimmermann Telegram, this development shocked and angered Washington. This plan to distract Woodrow Wilson from entering into the escalating tensions and violence in Europe served to thrust the U. S. into World War I and explained the motivation for the violence against South Texas ranchers and farmers.

Distress from the attack served to compound James B. McAllen's health problems, and in little over a year, he was dead, leaving behind his widow, Margaret Rhode McAllen, and four children, Mildred, Salomé, Eldred, and Argyle A., all between the ages of four and eleven. Margaret knew little about managing the San Juanito lands and the remaining businesses and struggled to hold the ranch together, relying on trusted family members. Ignacio Trevino, a cousin and employee, managed the ranch for approximately ten years. The vineyard went by the wayside when the cattle helped themselves to the foliage. Margaret Rohde McAllen would send provisions by wagon on a regular basis, and in turn, Ignacio would gather and sell cattle for the ranch. In about 1924, Margaret's sons, Argyle and Eldred, began to live at the ranch every summer and school break staying with Ignacio to learn ranch traditions and methods almost lost by the gap created by their father's death, but preserved by ranch employees. When each boy completed high school in Brownsville, they moved permanently to the ranch to manage the cattle and wildlife.

Argyle married Margaret Huffaker in 1933 and together they settled in the 1905 main house at the San Juanito headquarters, still riddled with bullet holes from the 1915 bandit attack. Argyle and Margaret were the first to live at the ranch permanently. Previous generations had maintained houses in Matamoros or Brownsville, because of their mercantile obligations, and lived at the ranch seasonally. Margaret rolled up her sleeves and began trying to make a proper home. In 1934, their first child Robert was born, followed by the second son James in 1937. The brothers continued to raise, gather, and ship cattle to northern markets. Argyle was especially intent on improving the bloodlines. In the 1930's, Tom Lasater of nearby Falfurrias, Texas developed the Beefmaster breed. Crossing the genetics of Hereford, Shorhorn and Brahman cattle, his goal was to create an animal that could thrive in the harsh environment of South Texas, while producing superior beef. The cattle were selected by their weight, conformation, milking ability, fertility, hardiness, and disposition. Though color was not a selected trait, these animals tend to be reddish brown in color. In the 1930s, Lasater gave Argyle A. McAllen one of his bulls to introduce into the McAllen Ranch bloodlines. Previously, the ranch's cattle were the rangy longhorn and longhorn mix so often found in the region. After the introduction of the Beefmaster, McAllen experimented with various blood mixtures between Beefmaster, Angus, Charolais, and others to try and improve birth weight and quality. Today, the ranch under the guidance of James A. McAllen, largely produces Beefmaster commercial and registered cattle for American markets.

In the 1940's, Eldred who had been managing the ranch along with Argyle, requested a partition. Representing only one-fourth of the ranch, the partition took several years to effect, pending surveys and legal procedures. In the 1950's Eldridge partitioned his share and the remaining acreage continued to be owned by his siblings. In 1985 and 1995, Mildred and Salome's heirs respectively sold their interests to the heirs of Argyle McAllen. Today the ranch is owned by the children of James Argyle McAllen, son of Argyle A. McAllen.

Later generations of McAllens maintained an early interest in wild-game management and conservation. In 1980 the McAllen Ranch was awarded membership in the Texas Department of Agriculture's Family Land Heritage Program, which honored those families that have owned and continuously operated a farm or ranch for 100 years or more. At the time, the McAllen Ranch (San Juanito) was the oldest in the Family Land Heritage Registry. In 1994, the National Cattle Raisers Association honored the McAllen Ranch (San Juanito) for being one of the oldest ranches still in operation within the United States. In 1997, the Beefmasters Breeders United honored the ranch with its Environmental Conservation Award for achieving a balance of edge space and prairie land, brush curtains for wild cats and riparian brush making room for both wildlife and livestock. In 1999, Willacy Nature Partners awarded the Richard Moore Ranch Conservation Award to the McAllen Ranch for its enhancement of habitat.

Local significance of the district:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2007.