Item #19855 Promotional Photographs of Farmland, Ranchland, and Orchards in 1920s South Texas. TEXAS.
Promotional Photographs of Farmland, Ranchland, and Orchards in 1920s South Texas

Promotional Photographs of Farmland, Ranchland, and Orchards in 1920s South Texas

[McAllen, Texas]: [Eskildsen Studio].

Undated, but 1920s. Group of ten b/w photographs, 5 x 7 inches, each captioned in the negative by hand and credited "Eskilosen," and with "DK" added in pencil on the verso of each. About fine, with the occasional faint finger-smudge.

The Lower Rio Grande Valley extends 100 miles north and west from the mouth of the river near Brownsville on the Gulf of Mexico through Mercedes, Weslaco, Progreso, Hidalgo, Llano Grande, McAllen, San Juan, and Rio Grande City. The completion of irrigation projects in the late nineteenth century and of the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railway in 1904 led to a period of explosive growth in the region over the next two decades. According to The Handbook of Texas Online, "In Hidalgo County, land that had been selling for twenty-five cents an acre in 1903... was selling for fifty dollars an acre in 1906 and for as much as $300 an acre by 1910." Cattle ranching continued to thrive, but successful marketing efforts by land companies and the railroad brought an influx of farmers, who settled down to grow citrus trees, grapes, cabbage, tomatoes, and other crops. The 10 photographs here, commercially produced by the Eskildsen Studio of McAllen, Texas, perfectly showcase the boomtown flavor of the Valley in the 1920s. They show bountiful fields of cabbage, alfalfa, and onions (and in one case, the African American laborers who made it all possible), a grapefruit tree bent to the ground under the weight of its abundant fruit, fields of grass-fed pigs and dairy cattle, a newly built farm house captioned "New Eden," and—perhaps most importantly—a major irrigation canal. Taken together, this small archive provides an edifying glimpse into the energy and optimism of pre-Depression South Texas.

Item #19855

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