Tropical Trail Region
Alice
HUB CITY OF THE SOUTH Alice, home to America's first all-Hispanic recording company, lies just over 40 miles west of the Texas Gulf Coast. In the mid-1800s, Alice was known as Bandana…
Texas Tropical Trail Cities
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Tropical Trail Region
Aransas Pass
SALTWATER HAVEN The community of Aransas Pass, named for a coastal channel between Mustang and St. Joseph Islands, serves as a gateway to water sports, fishing, bird watching, kayaking and sea shelling…
Tropical Trail Region
Bishop
BISHOP IS SMALL TOWN IN SOUTH TEXAS, it was a planned town from its beginning. In 1910, F.Z. Bishop, an insurance agent turned promoter, acquired 2,300 acres (9.3 km2) of land in…
Tropical Trail Region
Brownsville
WAR AND PEACEFUL SEA BREEZES Alongside Brownsville's restored Spanish Colonial Revival architecture and the refurbished 1912 Cameron County Courthouse, you‘ll find the 1870 steam-powered Engine Number One, once the locomotion mojo for…
Tropical Trail Region
Carrizo Springs
A MIX OF WATER AND OIL “Carrizo” is Spanish for a kind of cane grass that grew among the springs that once flowed around the Carrizo Springs community, the oldest community, in…
Tropical Trail Region
Corpus Christi
CORPUS! Gateway to Padre Island National Seashore! Need more be said? Certainly, because from here on its all gravy. Corpus Christi is the Tropical Trail Region's largest city, a deep-water seaport brimming…
Tropical Trail Region
Cotulla
SMALL TOWN, BIG DREAMS Did you know that Lyndon B. Johnson, our 36th President, served as teacher and principal in his early, pre-POTUS years? Cotulla's Brush Country Museum fills in the details…
Tropical Trail Region
Donna
RENEGADES TO RINGTONES Donna, it's not just the name of the town, but Donna Hooks Fletcher's name, a skilled entrepreneur and savvy business woman in the 1900s, who turned a local land…
Tropical Trail Region
Edinburg
MAMMOTHS TO MELONS The capital of Scotland may have its castle but our Edinburg has something even better—a full-sized replica of an Ice Age woolly mammoth, located in the town's Museum of…
Tropical Trail Region
Falfurrias
CURANDEROS AND CREAMERIES Don Pedrito Jaramillo, known throughout Texas as the "Healer of Los Olmos," arrived near the soon-to-be-established town of Falfurrias in 1881. According to his legend, Jamarillo suffered a nose…
Tropical Trail Region
George West
DRIVING THE DOGGIES INTO HISTORY Wild Hog and Cabrito Cook-offs, the George West Storyfest, and Miss Live Oak County Pageant are but a few of the modern celebratory events that probably would…
Tropical Trail Region
Harlingen
PAINTING THE TOWN RED...AND YELLOW AND BLUE AND GREEN... Harlingen, a Texas Main Street charmer, boasts walls brighter than its balmy, subtropical sunshine. Over a half dozen murals decorate the Jackson Street…
Tropical Trail Region
Hebbronville
TOWN ON A ROLL Ever heard of moving an entire town in one afternoon? It's possible, especially when the town consists of one train station and nothing else. Load it on to…
Tropical Trail Region
Hidalgo
WATER WORLD Hidalgo, once the epicenter of the "Magic Valley", verdant stretch of Rio Grande Valley where, it was said, anything would grow attracted land developers and farmers nationwide throughout the early…
Tropical Trail Region
Laredo
PLAZA SPIRIT The heart of Laredo's heritage district lies in its plaza, San Agustín, designated in 1767 during the original partitioning of village common areas by the Spanish colonial authority. Today, the…
Tropical Trail Region
Los Ebanos
LOS EBANOS, TX. Lòs Ebanos is off Farm Road 886 half a mile north of the Rio Grande in extreme southwestern Hidalgo County. The first recorded Spanish visit into the area was…
Tropical Trail Region
Los Fresnos
CITY CHARM, FARM FLAVOR Los Fresnos visitors are in for a bit of a treat. This friendly, Rio Grande Valley community loves a parade...year round! The city puts one on for the…
Tropical Trail Region
Mathis
HISTORY ABOUNDS IN MATHIS TEXAS located on farm road 359 along Interstate Highway 37 in western San Patricio County. The area, with once beaten battlegrounds ix now lush with farmland, brush and…
Tropical Trail Region
McAllen
BORN OF THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY The lively community of McAllen serves as example of the reprise of Hispanic influence over our borderland heritage. Its history, a shifting phase of Spanish and…
Tropical Trail Region
Mercedes
LAS BOTAS DE MERCEDES! Mercedes is home to the most unique Public Art project in the state of Texas. There are 30 handcrafted 5 1/2-foot-tall cowboy boots dispersed throughout the city each…
Tropical Trail Region
Mission
BLESSED ARE THE GRAPEFRUITS Mission's heritage includes the padres of the "Cavalry of Christ," horseback-riding priests who spent weeks at a time traveling to ranches across the Rio Grande Valley in order…
Tropical Trail Region
Pharr
PHARR AND AWAY The city of Pharr originated as a train stop along the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railroad and was named after a Louisiana sugarcane grower who arrived, along with…
Tropical Trail Region
Port Aransas
BEACH BUMMING Mustang Island, a sandy barrier of dunes and lagoons along the state's central coastline, is only 18 miles long, two miles wide, and all roads lead to the water's edge…
Tropical Trail Region
Port Isabel
SHRIMP AND DUCATS – TREASURES OF THE GULF Port Isabel, the Laguna Madre matron linking South Padre with the mainland and home to Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish, once hosted…
Tropical Trail Region
Raymondville
WHERE'S RAYMOND? Edward Burleson Raymond, founder of Raymondville and the Willacy County seat, was a busy man. Son of Republic of Texas lawyer and newspaperman N.C. Raymond and born in a log…
Independence Trail Region
Refugio
THE BELLS OF RE-FURY-O! Refugio, once the site of a Karankawa campground, served as the relocation spot for Señora del Refugio Mission in 1795. Why move a mission to the campground? To…
Tropical Trail Region
Rio Grande City
FORTS AND STEAMBOATS Imagine living a hundred miles from the mouth of the Rio Grande River and watching steamboats dock in your own backyard. A 19th century Rio Grande City, one of…
Tropical Trail Region
Rockport-Fulton
DON'T WASTE A MINUTE ON FRANDOLIG ISLAND! Rockport really does rock! The sheltered harbor, established over a century and a half ago, sits atop a shelf of solid rock underlying its shoreline…
Tropical Trail Region
Roma
RESTORATION STATION Roma, a former Spanish colony founded on a bluff high above the Rio Grande River, hosts an amazing nine-square block area around its plaza that encompasses more than 30 structures…
Tropical Trail Region
San Benito
NARCISO, CONJUNTO, AND FREDDY FENDER Irrigation and the railroad may have put San Benito on the map in 1907 but music would make the town shine 100 years later. The town's name…
Tropical Trail Region
San Diego
SAN DIEGO, TX.San Diego, the county seat of Duval County, is on San Diego Creek and the Texas-Mexican Railway at the intersection of State highways 44 and 359 and Farm Road 1329…
Tropical Trail Region
San Juan
The community of San Juan was once home to the largest concrete irrigation pipe manufacturer in the South. It is also the location of the historic Virgen de San Juan del Valle…
Tropical Trail Region
San Ygnacio
NO TIME LIKE THE PAST The oldest town in Zapata County also has some of the oldest structures. San Ygnacio, established in 1830, is the last South Texas community to retain a…
Tropical Trail Region
Sarita
DYNASTIES AND DRAMA Sarita, established in 1904 and named for the daughter of ranching magnate and entrepreneur John G. Kenedy, served as center for the Kenedy Ranch and the Kenedy Pasture Company…
Tropical Trail Region
Sinton
The community of Sinton, San Patricio County seat, provided a shipping point for agricultural goods and cattle courtesy of four different railway companies, all of them instrumental in promoting growth in the…
Tropical Trail Region
South Padre Island
South Padre is both a town and an island, accessed from the mainland via the Queen Isabella Causeway at Port Isabel. Luxury condos, restaurants, nightclubs, spas, and shops line approximately eight miles…
Tropical Trail Region
Taft
"THE BEST COTTON-PICKIN' LAND AROUND" If Imogene Wharburton, Taft's first postmistress, were alive today she probably could fill you in on all the town gossip. In 1904, the year the first post…
Tropical Trail Region
Tilden
DURING THE CIVIL War, a Home Guard post named Camp Rio Frio was built to protect the community from Apaches and bandits. After the war, the community was called Dog Town and…
Tropical Trail Region
Weslaco
THEATRE, A FAMOUS ONION, AND CITRUS GOWNS Weslaco derives its name from the development company that arrived in the Rio Grande Valley in 1910 during the region's agricultural boom, a period of…
Tropical Trail Region
Zapata
NEW ZAPATA The location of Zapata, along the shores of Falcon International Reservoir, is considered the state’s capital of world-class bass fishing. The reservoir, dedicated in 1953 and constructed to provide water…
Tropical Trail Region
Kingsville
KING OF THE VILLE Captain King, the 19th century entrepreneur responsible for creating the "birthplace of American ranching," was born to Irish parents, spent his childhood in New York City, stowed away…