Mission Canal Company Second Lift Pumphouse

This area of the Rio Grande valley was the first to be planted in citrus fruits. The addition of irrigation canals allowed for three seasons per year of agriculture on the formerly-arid lands further from the river. The City of Mission was founded in 1907 and citrus fruit culture began around 1910. Mission was one of eight new towns that sprang up between 1906 and 1916 in Hidalgo County along a new railroad line. The St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad and irrigation companies promoted settling and farming the area. The irrigation system was built and tracts of irrigated land were sold to create small citrus farms. The first pump station was built in 1908 on the banks of the river; only the chimney remains, in what has become Chimney Park. Before this, small-scale farming took place along the Rio Grande River in the rich delta soils using private irrigation canals, but these were susceptible to being destroyed by floods. Local laborers were hired to clear the land and dig the irrigation canal two miles northward from the pump house to the new town of Mission. To be able to pump water further north, the second lift station was necessary. Hispanic laborers were hired to build the second lift pumphouse from local Madero brick. The town created a separate water system; the canal water was mainly used for irrigation of crops.

The Mission Canal Company was so successful that it could not keep up with demand for irrigation. To place the company on a better business basis, a friendly reorganization was planned in August 1912. The district court appointed J.L. Malone of Mission as a receiver at the request of a trustee, the Bankers Trust Company. This was needed before financing extensive improvements that were to be made to increase the plant's capacity. John J. Conway, the president of Mission Canal Company and one if its largest creditors, announced that the company was "installing two large forty-eight inch pumps and doing considerable dirt work to increase the capacity..." The company couldn't overcome its mortgage debt and was sold to John Shary in 1915. The renamed United Irrigation Company was a success and added a third lift station in the late 1910s. By 1924, the company provided irrigation to 25,000 acres and owned over 20 miles of main line canals, over 22 miles of sub-main canals and almost 130 miles of laterals. The company upgraded the pumps in the second lift house to electric power in 1926. By 1933, over 1.5 million fruit trees were growing in the Mission area. The pumphouse's west wing and an adjacent storage shed were added in 1936; a seond story was added to the main block of the pumphouse around 1936.

A freestanding, tall cylindrical chimney on the north end of the pumphouse used to burn fuel. The pumphouse was replaced in 1984 with a newer structure to the east containing natural gas and electric pumps set in a concrete foundation. The newer pumps still lift water from underground pipes to flow into the upper canal. The 1984 structure is not part of the National Register listing, which marks the significance of the original pumphouse to the history of local agriculture. The success of the citrus industry was a major reason that Mission was settled and grew in the first half of the twentieth century. A celebration of the local citrus industry began in 1932; the Citrus Fiesta centers around the Ruby Red and Star Ruby grapefruits. The pumphouse was purchased by a local water district in 1951 after a freeze put many local citrus growers out of business.

Anonymous. "Mission Canal on Business Basis." Brownsville Herald (Brownsville, TX) August 17th 1912. , 1-1.

Heller Jr., Dick. Mission, TX, Texas State Historical Association Handbook of Texas. Accessed October 4th 2020. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/mission-tx.

Malanka, Anne. Myers, Terri. NRHP Multiple Property Nomination of Historic and Architectural Resources of Mission, Hidalgo County, Texas. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 1998.

Myers, Terri. Roark, Sophie. Eisenhour, Tom P. NRHP Nomination of Mission Canal Company Second Lift Pumphouse. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 2002.