Casa de Palmas

The 1918 Casa de Palmas Hotel is located at 101 N. Main Street in McAllen, Texas in the heart of downtown McAllen. Specifically, it is located on Block 53 in the town of North McAllen, Hidalgo County, Texas. The hotel was the vision of the town's civic leaders to create a distinctive landmark property to define the ten-year-old town of McAllen as a destination and commercial center, thereby advancing its growth and development. Casa's developers were the City's then-mayor (O. P. Archer) and the President of its leading bank (R. E. Horn of the First State Bank and Trust Company). They believed that a proper hotel was essential to the future of the community and developed Casa de Palmas after efforts to solicit hotel firms to build in the city failed.

From 1918 to the years following World War II, Casa de Palmas served as a locally owned independent hospitality landmark property for the McAllen community. In its early years agricultural businessmen used the hotel for lodging as well as a place to conduct business. It was also utilized by tourists seeking the temperate climate in McAllen or as an overnight stop on their way to Monterrey, Mexico. In addition to its connection with agriculture and tourism, the Casa de Palmas functioned as the community's primary social gathering place for over fifty years. Local fraternal organizations frequently made use of the Hotel banquet and meeting rooms. High school graduation parties, wedding receptions, and anniversary parties were held at the Casa de Palmas. Many a Valley resident past or present has attended a high school graduation party or wedding reception on the grounds or in the banquet rooms of the Casa de Palmas. In 1918 and again during World War II, the Casa de Palmas provided banquet and meeting space for the United States Army.

After World War II, in 1945, the hotel was sold to non-local ownership and the property's defining role in the community began to wane. Case de Palmas' once-vaunted amenities were tired. The following year, McAllen built a new civic center, marking the end of Casa's central role in the community. In the 1970s, new owners sought to return the property to its once prominent role in the community, launching a $2.5 million renovation and expansion. To support the hotel as a meeting center, the City built a two-story parking garage along the rail tracks on the lot next to Casa.

In 1979, the Hidalgo County Historical Commission recommended the hotel as a Texas historic landmark. The Texas Historical Commission approved the recommendation and the following year unveiled a plaque on the site at a community ceremony. The current owner plans to rehabilitate the hotel utilizing federal historic preservation tax incentives.
The property is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under criteria "A" for its integral role in the development of McAllen, Texas.

HISTORY OF THE BUILDING

Casa de Palmas Hotel was built in 1919 by McAllen's mayor and banker in the name of the Business Men's Club of McAllen to advance the town's growth.

McAllen came into being as a direct result of the railroad and fundamentally represented a shift in the socio-economic base of the area. In 1904, the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico railroad reached Hidalgo County. Competing town sites were platted by landowners and entrepreneurs; land prices went from $0.25 per acre in 1903 to $50 in 1906 and $300 in 1910. Beyond just raising the price of land, the railroad moved the area from a Hispanic-dominated ranching economy to an Anglo-dominated farming economy. By 1910, Hidalgo County's economic base focused on citrus fruits, cotton, and corn. The county's population surged with Anglo-descent newcomers, doubling from 1900 (6,837 to 13,728). To further advance the farm economy, the Rio Bravo Irrigation Company built irrigation canals. In 1908, it completed a canal to the town site of East McAllen, then a railroad population center of 300 with five stores, two taverns, and two lumberyards. The following year, the town's first newspaper began and First State Bank built the town's first brick building. Two years later, in 1911, East McAllen incorporated as McAllen with a population of 1,000.

The town fathers pursued continued growth and saw a need to provide quality accommodations for visitors. Land development firms were bringing large parties of "home seekers" to McAllen by rail, filling the town's existing smaller hotels. With its proximity to Mexico and a temperate climate, the town fathers also saw their McAllen as a natural attraction for upscale seasonal tourist-residents (Winter Texans). In addition to rail travelers, the rise of Henry Ford's Model T created the prospect of leisure motor tourists and transformed business travel. Finally, the Army had established a large post in McAllen in 1916 though without any quality facilities for formal social occasions. The only quality accommodations in the Lower Rio Grande Valley were located to the east: the Miller Hotel 70 miles away in Brownsville and the Mercedes Hotel 30 miles away in Mercedes.

Leading the effort to secure a hotel was R. E. Horn, founder and president of the First State Bank and Trust Company in McAllen. He had moved to McAllen from Boulder, Colorado ten years earlier as an employee of the McAllen Townsite Company, which had founded and platted the town. Joining Horn was O.P. Archer, McAllen's Mayor. They discussed the idea with M. L. Waller, an architect from Fort Worth who had moved to McAllen in 1913. Waller had recently designed the Pharr-San Juan High School and the Edinburg Junior College. Horn and Archer eventually asked Waller to make an effort to solicit hotel firms to build in the town. His efforts were fruitless. Thereupon Archer and Horn pushed Waller to take on the project himself. Collectively, in August 1917, they formed the Rio Grande Valley Hotel Company. Waller held controlling stock, joining with Horn, Archer, Dr. F.E. Osborn, and Dave Trotti.

From the start, the McAllen Hotel Company envisioned an edifice and setting aspirational rather than practical - in the tradition of resort hotels. They purchased a two-acre site, 300 feet by 300 feet, located on Main Street - the community's primary land route and adjacent to the Gulf Coast rail line's depot for $41,250. The parcel also fronted onto Archer Park, named for the City's Mayor, and provided the hotel with an opportunity for grand vistas.

Waller selected the Spanish Colonial Revival style for the new hotel. The original form was simple: a three-story, front-facing "H" to which Waller added Spanish colonial features. The wings each housed 10 rooms per floor, while the three floors of the hyphen included the lobby, restaurant, and ballroom. Waller created a true civic and regional landmark with twin faux bell towers where the hyphen and the wings met. To accentuate the building further, Waller created a dramatic entry from Main Street, flanked by decorative colonnades and a central plaza. He capitalized on extensive plantings of non-native Palm trees that lined North Main Street and added other tropical plantings.

While certainly, the style is not inappropriate for the region, Waller could easily have chosen from several other styles equally current from the era for the three-story hotel. The Spanish Colonial Revival style was becoming very much in vogue in architectural circles. Historical and exotic styles lent themselves to creating a sense of destination with the hotel. To this, the McAllen Hotel Company added creature comforts rare in Hidalgo County in the era - private baths with clean hot and cold running water, steam heat, private telephones, electricity and elevators.

When the hotel opened in April 1918, Casa de Palmas was considered one of the most beautiful hotels south of Houston and certainly the largest and grandest building in McAllen, Hidalgo County and the Lower Rio Grande Valley:

Every one of the sixty rooms of the hotel is an outside one, and so arranged that they get a south or east breeze right off the gulf, making the most delightful sleeping apartments at all seasons of the year. The building is the only fireproof hotel in the west gulf coast country. There will be thirty rooms with private baths, and the balance without baths. Every room will be equipped with a private telephone, and has access to a porch. Steam heat, hot and cold running water, a beautiful salon for ladies, large well lighted sample rooms, commodious and well lighted lobby, one large main and two private dining rooms and every detail necessary to conducting a strictly first class tourist and commercial hotel.

A more personal account comes from Brad Smith, who was a newspaper boy for the Rio Grande Valley Morning Sun:

It [Casa de Palmas] was big and expansive and tall and glistening, the exact picture of an inviting hostelry in the middle of what looked mostly like desert." Its twin domes, each lighted nightly from within, stood as a landmark advertising McAllen as an oasis and which, even then, marked the "City of Palms".

From the beginning, the Casa de Palmas was an integral part of McAllen. The hotel's opening was the social event of the season. The Army frequently used the hotel for formal social gatherings for its officers, including one occasion when Colonel Cornelius Vanderbilt, Commander of the New York Contingent, was the featured speaker. From inception, Casa was the location for socially important gatherings from weddings to formal dances to business meetings. Local civic groups including the Business Men's Club, Chamber of Commerce and Kiwanis used the hotel, while it also served as a regional meeting center, hosting the Texas Hotel Association in the 1920s.

Shortly after the hotel's completion, its construction received the test of a severe storm as a hurricane rushed through the town. The "Corpus Christi Storm of 1919" forced most of McAllen to find refuge in the newly completed hotel. The hotel was undamaged by the high winds and rain except for a few broken windows that caused mild soaking of parts of the building. To many of the worried residents' surprise, the Twin Towers remained steadfast and no major damage had occurred.

In 1922, John Lomax of San Benito bought a one-third share of the hotel and four years later acquired the remaining two-thirds. Lomax had moved to San Benito in 1909, being one of the organizers and Presidents of the Farmers State Guaranty Bank there. Lomax also organized the Valley Gin Company, which was largely responsible for processing the region's cotton crop. It was Lomax's wife who then assumed control of the operation and management of the hotel.
In the next decade, Casa's popularity joined with the growth of McAllen. In 1925, the Hotel converted its dining room to sleeping rooms to accommodate demand. But the change was temporary. By the late 1930s, Lomax decided it was time to expand the hotel. He hired noted Welasco-based architect R. Newell Waters to design a 3-story, $100,000 wing to the south. Upon completion in 1939, Lomax celebrated with a 3-night grand opening of dining and dancing featuring a 12-piece orchestra from San Antonio.

The Lomaxes were known throughout the region for their hospitality and well-cooked meals. Large Sunday evening dinners were the highlight of the week as Mrs. Lomax presented the meal on a large buffet table with silver service. During World War II, many officers from the Monroe Air Base, located northwest of McAllen, came to the Casa de Palmas for dining and dancing. Tea dances were also held at the hotel from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM on Sunday afternoons in the courtyard. A live orchestra played from a bandstand and entertained the young men of the base and the chaperoned young women of the Valley. Frequently these couples spent their honeymoon at the Hotel. Through the 1940s, the hotel was a showcase for the decorating talents of Mrs. Lomax, and the Casa was said to have "the air of a fine home."

In June 1945, the Lomax family sold the Casa de Palmas Hotel to H. R. Fuller Stephans and Group. While the hotel continued as a prominent local landmark physically and socially, the sale marks the beginning of the end of Casa's historical period. Ownership of the hotel was no longer local and beginning in the postwar era, the hotel industry began a rapid transformation. Traditional independent hotels gradually declined in the face of new auto-friendly motels and motor inns, serving both the business traveler and the tourist with standardized amenities and nationwide reservation systems. Within a year, the hotel was sold again - to Casa de Palmas Hotel Corporation. Still, as late as 1952, Hollywood film stars such as Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn, and Jean Peters stayed at the Casa when Eli Kazan used the hotel as his headquarters during the filming of Viva Zapata, and the hotel continued as the venue for civic groups, DAR chapters, Kiwanis and high school proms. Symbolizing the hotel's changing role in the community, McAllen built its own Convention and Civic Center in 1946. Thirteen years later, the city built a new $1 million Civic Center.

In 1972, Pan Tex Hotel of Laredo purchased Casa de Palmas with the intent of re-establishing its role as the premier hotel in McAllen. By this point, the once-modern amenities were now tired. The new owners proposed renovating, modernizing, and expanding the Casa de Palmas. Spending $2.5 million, they hoped the new facility would serve as a meeting center for the growing McAllen area. To support the project, the city built a two-story parking garage for the hotel on land to the south, blocking the now unattractive rail line. Work was almost completed in late 1973, when lightning struck the roof of the addition in September, two months before the anticipated grand opening. The oldest portions of the building were slightly damaged, but the later wing additions (west elevation) and the brand-new portion had to be almost entirely reconstructed. The hotel opened again in 1974. The expanded hotel has 170 rooms and five suites, including two tower suites, a private club, four meeting rooms, two restaurants for 120 persons, a heated swimming pool, a gift shop, and a convention center.

In 1979, the State of Texas recognized the Casa de Palmas as a Texas landmark. Perhaps Brad Smith best expressed the landmark's connection with the community in 1978 when he revisited the hotel sixty years after delivering newspapers to its guests:

During my last trip to the Valley, it was a thrill to walk over the same tile floors in 1978 where I had walked in 1918 and 1920, to walk along the same corridors once more where I had delivered my daily papers more than a half-century later, to look out over the McAllen business district from the Casa's commanding cupolas in exactly the same way I had looked over early-day McAllen's one and two-story buildings scattered along the three or four blocks of a dusty Main Street.

History of McAllen, Texas

As noted, the development of Casa de Palmas is closely intertwined with the establishment and growth of McAllen.

The community is about seventy miles west of Brownsville and thirty-five miles west of Harlingen in southern Hidalgo County. The town is a mile from the Mexican border and 152 miles from Monterrey Mexico.

The town and community of McAllen did not exist until the arrival of the railroad in 1905. It is situated on land that was part of porciones 63 and 64, granted respectively by Spain to Antonio Gutiérrez and Juan Antonio Villareal in 1767. Gutiérrez and his heirs inhabited the land at least up to 1883, and Villareal's heirs lived on his land for at least fifty years before 1852. José Manuel Gómez, who received the land grant from Spain in 1800, established the Santa Anita Ranch around 1797. He raised cattle, sheep, goats, and horses on his ranch and helped to continue to colonize the area. His great-granddaughter Salomé Ballí, who inherited the land in the early 1800s, married Brownsville businessman John Young about 1848. The couple proceeded to acquire land in the surrounding area, and in 1852 Young applied for porciones 64 and 65 in what would later be southern Hidalgo County.

John Young died in 1859, leaving his holdings to his widow and son, John J. Young. John McAllen, Young senior's assistant, was retained as the manager of the ranch. McAllen married Salomé Ballí de Young in 1861. She was part of a wealthy family from Reynosa, Mexico that owned large land grants from the King of Spain that stretched across the Rio Grande River and encompassed the land that the city of McAllen currently occupies. In 1862, they had a son, James Ballí McAllen. They continued adding land to their ranch, which was renamed the McAllen Ranch. The site of present-day McAllen is within the ranch's boundaries.

Beginning at the turn of the century, land ownership and use began to shift with the coming of the railroad. The St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railroad was chartered on June 6, 1903, as part of a $1 million railroad connecting Chicago, St. Louis, Tampico, and Mexico City. A spur line called the Hidalgo and San Miguel Extension (now Sam Fordyce Branch) was planned to run west from Brownsville parallel to the Mexican border. On August 20, 1904, John McAllen and his son James donated land to have the railroad cross their land. Four months later, the McAllens joined with John Young, Uriah Lott (President of the railroad), and Leonidas C. Hill, Sr. (a South Texas lawyer and land developer) to create the McAllen Townsite Company, though the location of the new town site remained unidentified. In 1909, John McAllen proposed a town site with a depot nearest to the Hidalgo County seat, eight miles to the south, a general store, a restaurant, and a cluster of eight or nine tents. The McAllen post office was also included.

McAllen's town site grew slowly, faced with competition from a neighboring community two miles to the east. That area, known as East McAllen, was platted by William Briggs, O. E. M. Jones, and John Closner in 1907. To further advance the farm economy, the Rio Bravo Irrigation Company built irrigation canals, completing a canal to East McAllen in 1908. At the time, the town was a railroad population center of 300 with five stores, two taverns, two lumberyards, and a church.

The following year, the town's first newspaper, the McAllen Monitor, began and First State Bank built the town's first brick building. Two years later, East McAllen incorporated as McAllen with a population of 1,000. By 1911, East McAllen had grown to a population of 1,000 and McAllen had ceased to exist. The town applied for and was issued a charter of incorporation in 1911 under the name McAllen with the main commercial district located along, appropriately, Main Street.
The arrival of the railroad represented a fundamental shift in the socio-economy of the region. Prior, the economy was based on ranching dominated by Hispanic landowners. As late as 1890, the county included nearly 72,000 head of cattle and 21,000 sheep. The railroad, along with the irrigation companies, transformed cheap grassland into more expensive farmland. As with the McAllen family, the railroad also worked with landowners to create town sites on raw land. By 1911, 5,000 acres were under cultivation in East McAllen with produce consisting of cotton, alfalfa, broomcorn, citrus fruits, grapes, and figs. Land prices skyrocketed from $0.25 per acre in 1903 to $300 per acre in 1910. This shift expressed itself most evidently with a sudden influx of Anglos; the population of Hidalgo County doubled between 1900 and 1910. The new Anglo power structure then segregated Mexican Americans by land sales (e.g., red-lining), in the schools and the hospitals.

The power shift was further advanced when President Woodrow Wilson established an army base at McAllen in 1916 and stationed 12,000 New York state troops to help with border disturbances and to train for the United States' forthcoming involvement in the First World War. This influx essentially doubled the population of Hidalgo County and overwhelmed the town of McAllen. There were very few facilities to handle the large increase in population. Locals were greatly outnumbered and every business establishment was swamped. Calls went out to wholesale houses to rush orders of every type of merchandise. Boarding houses were full and new eating places were established under tents in vacant lots to fill the demand.

The Anglo-town fathers pursued continued growth. They saw a need to provide quality accommodations for visitors as a critical step forward. From an approximate population of 1,000, McAllen grew to 5,331 by 1920. Land development firms continued to bring large parties of midwestern farmers and home seekers to McAllen by rail. With its proximity to Mexico and a temperate climate, McAllen gained popularity as a seasonal resident retreat. The army's continued presence required a social setting appropriate for the officers. And growth in farm production was creating jobs for agricultural brokers. In just one product, broomcorn (a type of sorghum used for making brooms), McAllen came to establish a regional center requiring 35 buyers to be in residence.

Their solution was to create the Casa de Palmas - an aspirational landmark property to distinguish McAllen. This was to be the location for the broomcorn buyers, winter residents, home seekers, and others - a first-class, luxurious hotel with amenities unheard of in the region.

The population continued to grow at a fast pace. By the mid-decade, the Casa transformed its dining room into sleeping rooms to help accommodate the rush of visitors and future residents. A hospital was built and the first international bridge to Reynosa, Mexico was completed. In 1930, the population reached 9,074 - a growth of 70%. Town boosters continued to grow McAllen, adding canning factories, a winery, tortilla plants, woodworking facilities, and oil exploration. The town's popularity as a winter visitor destination also grew with the town opening Miller Airport in 1930. To accommodate the continued growth, Casa built its southern wing in 1939.

By 1940, McAllen had reached a population of 11,877 which doubled later by 1950, and by 1960 reached nearly 33,000. By that point, McAllen was a complex community serving as the oil capital of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, a leading winter resort in the state, a major port of entry for Mexican goods, an important agricultural center, and home of one of Texas's finest civic centers. While the economy and population growth ebbed in the 1960s, it surged forward in the 1970s to today with population doubling in the last quarter century.