{"nrhp_refnum":"83004513","name":"Rancho Toluca","other_names":["Toluca Ranch"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"FM 1015","address_restricted":false,"city":"Progreso","county":"Hidalgo County","state":"TX","lat":26.07225331850003,"lon":-97.945711482407,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-07-21","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Agriculture","Military","Education","Exploration/Settlement","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A ranch complex of four yellow-brick buildings (church, ranch house, store and schoolhouse) on FM 1015 near Progreso, Hidalgo County, Texas, built between 1899 and 1908 on a ranch founded in 1880 by Florencio Saenz.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the complex is one of the few intact ensembles of ranch buildings surviving in the Rio Grande valley. It records the lifestyle of early ranchers and shows the founder's wish to make a grand statement through the scale of the house and church. The ranch also figures in local history through its post office, school and military occupation during the 1913-1916 bandit raids.","narrative":"Toluca Ranch is a group of four yellow-brick buildings near Progreso in Hidalgo County, Texas, made from brick fired on the ranch itself. They are the Church of St. Joseph the Worker (1899), a Gothic Revival building with a shingled spire; a two-story Italianate ranch house (1903) with a three-story tower; a store (1908); and a one-room schoolhouse (1906). Florencio Saenz founded the ranch in 1880 on part of the 1790 Llano Grande land grant and later expanded it to 10,000 acres. The complex is regarded as one of the few intact ranch ensembles in the Rio Grande valley, showing how valley ranchers lived around 1900. The ranch also hosted an early post office named Progreso, a school used until about 1911, and U.S. cavalry troops during the border raids of 1913-1916, whose names and bullet holes remain in the store walls. The founding family still owns a portion of the ranch.","period_of_significance":"1880-1908","architect_builder":"Florencio Saenz/Father Peter Keralum","architectural_style":"Gothic Revival (church); Italianate (ranch house)","criteria":[],"status_note":"The form states that the complex has undergone no changes since photos submitted in 1980 and that the property is currently vacant, though the classification section marks it occupied.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:18.823241-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/60/9725/40972560/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/83004513.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40972560","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q109999723"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/hidalgo-county/rancho-toluca-83004513/"}