McAllen Ranch

McAllen Ranch, also called Rancho San Juanito, is a working cattle ranch of roughly 32,500 acres northwest of Edinburg in the Rio Grande Valley. Its origins lie in a Spanish colonial grant: Manuel Gómez occupied the Santa Anita lands in 1790, dug wells and built houses for workers, and received the grant formally in 1799. The land later passed through the Ballí and McAllen families, and the western half, San Juanito, was partitioned off in 1898. The headquarters includes a center-passage main house built in 1905 by Martin Hansen of Brownsville for James Ballí McAllen, a board-and-batten guest house with a wine cellar, a commissary, employee houses, stables and barns. Beyond the compound are windmills, wells, corrals, boundary marker stones and four archaeological sites. The property was listed for its settlement and agricultural history, its architecture and its archaeological potential, and for remaining in one family's hands for more than two centuries.