Lomita Boulevard Commercial Historic District

Mission's Lomita Boulevard Commercial Historic District encompasses a cohesive collection of early 20th-century commercial properties serving the Hispanic community since the founding of this South Texas trading center. Fostered by irrigation and rail-related land development efforts in 1908, Mission developed along segregated patterns throughout the subsequent decades. Housing and services for the city's Hispanic population evolved on the city's south side. Substantial commercial enterprises developed along the primary commercial artery between about 1920 and 1950 to meet the demand for goods and services from a rapidly growing Hispanic population. Evaluated within the context of Grapefruit's Lone Star Home: the Development of Mission, this district reflects broad historic and cultural trends shaping development patterns in the community during this period. It is therefore nominated at the local level of significance in the area of Community Planning and Development.

After Mission's founding in 1908, the new community prospered primarily because of its location on the St. Louis, Houston, and Brownsville Railroad (later Gulf Coast) and the availability of water from the Mission Canal Company. These enterprises fostered large-scale agricultural activity despite the region's arid climate. Shortly after engineer S. Rowe platted Mission in 1908, two blocks along the primary commercial street evolved into the primary business district. Lying on north and south of the railroad tracks, these blocks developed with frame commercial buildings facing onto a wide, dirt thoroughfare named for the area's historic mission chapel and later renamed for one of the town's initial developers.

According to many accounts, a conscious effort to segregate Anglo from Hispanic residents guided Mission's initial development, a pattern repeated in rail-related towns throughout the region. Most Anglos lived and transacted their business on the north side of the tracks in Mission, while most Hispanics lived and traded on the south side. Indeed the southern part of town became colloquially known as 'Mexiquito' in the years following the initial sale of town lots.

Mission enjoyed a reputation as one of the premier towns for Hispanics interested in relocating to the lower Rio Grande Valley from outlying ranches in Texas or northern Mexico. Property south of the railroad tracks quickly attracted a substantial number of Mexican and Mexican-American settlers who proved vital to the town's early success. While several professionally and culturally accomplished Hispanics settled in Mission early on, the Mexican Revolution quickened emigration across the Rio Grande. By 1915, Mission boasted a resident Hispanic population large enough to support several commercial enterprises catering to Spanish-speaking customers. In addition, commercial and recreational services established on the south side enhanced its allure as a marketing destination point for Hispanic ranchers, farmers, field hands and their families early Mission business owners came from the area's established Hispanic ranch families. Anticipating the economic opportunities available in the new town, the sons and daughters of this landed group re-located their households and opened businesses on Mission's south side. In many instances, these merchants and service providers supported their families in a middle-class lifestyle during a period of socio-economic turbulence for many Hispanics in the region. Some families, like the de la Garzas, the Barreras, and the Austins, owned several commercial and service-oriented businesses.

The de la Garza family, for example, founded a grocery and dry goods store on the corner of Lomita Boulevard and Eighth Street. Its proximity to the railroad tracks and depot provided a competitive advantage allowing the business to prosper and enabling the family to construct a substantial masonry building (now demolished) about 1923. By 1940 the business expanded again to include a wholesale grocery warehouse.

Barrera family enterprises in the area date to the establishment of a service station at 500 Lomita in 1918. This early masonry building still stands, albeit in a much-modified configuration. It houses the district's oldest continually operating business. The Barreras and their relatives eventually ran a pharmacy and medical clinic at 506 Lomita, an auto parts store, and one of Mission's three bottling works, all located on South Lomita Boulevard.

Dr. J.J. Austin married into a Hispanic family with deep roots in the region. He and his adult children built substantial masonry buildings in South Lomita following the Mexican Revolutionary period. Dr. Austin conducted his thriving pharmacy and medical practice from a 2-story building at 501 Lomita completed in 1919. Shortly thereafter, his son opened a dry goods store in a 1-story masonry commercial building at 601 Lomita in the next block.

Other early commercial enterprises along South Lomita Boulevard included a windmill and primitive waterworks, dry goods, hardware, grocery stores, automotive supply and repair shops, gasoline and service stations, two bottling works, cantinas, a health clinic, and two pharmacies. These enterprises suggest the extent of mercantile operations that provided services to the expanding Hispanic population in the Valley during the historic district's period of significance.
Little documentation portrays the earliest of these commercial enterprises along South Lomita Boulevard, however. Although a 2-story frame commercial building existed in the district in 1912, buildings in the area remained primarily frame constructions by the end of the decade. In addition to these single-story commercial buildings, the four-block area along South Lomita Boulevard hosted 17 small domestic buildings and some industrial facilities such as bottling works. Several lots remained undeveloped, while the counterpart commercial area on the north side boasted several 2-story masonry buildings and a few vacant tracts (Sanborn Fire Insurance Company, 1919). An equal complement of substantial commercial buildings did not appear on both sides of the tracks for another decade ((Sanborn Fire Insurance Company, 1933).

As Mission matured, the commercial blocks along the south end of Lomita Boulevard retained their unique identity. A narrower roadbed and a concentration of groceries and wholesale merchandisers provided a more work-a-day character to this end of the commercial street, especially when compared to the confectionery shops and fancy clothing stores on the wider street in the Anglo commercial district. After World War I, many of the original frame buildings along South Lomita Boulevard were slowly replaced with more substantial, mainly masonry, storefronts. The reasons for the change were manifold. Most of the commercial properties quickly erected in the raw new town between 1908 and 1912 probably didn't benefit from permanent construction techniques and materials. A major hurricane-force storm hit Mission in 1919 and damaged many of the frame buildings in town, including a 2-story frame commercial building noted as 'out of plumb' on that year's Sanborn map (Sanborn Fire Insurance Company, 1919). An expansive economy in the subsequent decade also provided some Hispanic merchants with sufficient capital to expand their enterprises and undertake building improvements. The availability of locally made brick from Gunther Wieske's modernized Mission Brick Company after 1923 also facilitated this trend.

Grapefruit production in Hidalgo County, much of it centered around Mission, fueled the young town's extensive prosperity during the 1920s. While few Hispanics received direct economic returns from producing orchards, however, plentiful jobs fueled the local economy. The region's Hispanic population continued to swell as Mexican immigrants arrived in search of work in the booming town and surrounding orchards. As Mission grew, so did its commercial districts. Reflecting Mission's role as a distribution center for western Hidalgo County by 1925, several wholesale grocer and supply, hardware, and feed stores served as South Lomita's cornerstone businesses during this period. These large facilities were joined by other general merchandise stores, pharmacies, barber shops, saloons, pool halls, theaters, cafes, and stands catering primarily to a Hispanic clientele.

Despite the onset of the Great Depression and its damage to the agricultural economy elsewhere in the state, Mission experienced a boom during the 1930s. The agricultural economy in the valley sustained growth during this period. In addition, Otto Wood's 1934 discovery of oil 15 miles away in Sam Fordyce provided a brief influx of cash and trade to Mission. Several substantial edifices in the historic district date to this period, including 406, 421, 505, and 523 South Lomita Boulevard. Some of these buildings feature Mission Revival stylistic embellishments suggestive of the enduring appeal of this architectural style and reinforcing the town's romanticized link with La Lomita Mission.

The influx of base personnel from nearby Moore Field during World War II also brought economic benefits to the community, although there were few changes to the buildings along South Lomita Boulevard. In the immediate post-war period, however, business owners razed some of the remaining frame buildings from Mission's early years, replacing them with more utilitarian masonry stores. The 1-story building at 400 Lomita and the 2- 2-story building at 401 Lomita, for example, reflect this trend. With the damage to the local citriculture industry wrought by the postwar freezes, however, only a limited number of buildings were built in the district after 1951. For the most part, the commercial properties in along South Lomita Boulevard (or South Conway, as it was renamed during this period) remained unaffected by the modernization impulses that struck business owners on the north side in subsequent decades.

However, property owners in the Lomita Boulevard Commercial Historic District have renovated or updated district resources in recent years. In some cases, such as the Austin Building at 501 South Conway these efforts rendered the building virtually unrecognizable to the period of significance. Most resources nevertheless retain historic character despite minor changes to materials and a handful of resources, such as the buildings at 406 and 715 South Conway retain their architectural integrity to a high degree. As a whole the district contains the highest concentration of intact historic commercial properties in Mission. The vast majority of property and business owners are still Hispanic, and many current businesses still cater to Hispanic clientele. Although modern businesses along the rapidly developing commercial corridor fronting U.S. Highway 83 are siphoning off trade from the area, the Lomita Boulevard Commercial Historic District remains a viable economic district that bespeaks the contributions of the Hispanic community to the development of Mission. With the recent advent of a local Main Street Program, economic development and rehabilitation efforts are underway to focus on this significant representative of the architectural and cultural heritage of the community.