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City of McAllen

1300 Houston Avenue
956-681-1000

Mission :

Dedicated to consistently providing high quality services and quality of life to all who live , work and visit the city of Mc allen.

City History :

It wasn't until the early 1850's, when John McAllen arrived in the Rio Grande Valley, did development begin to come together where McAllen is today. John McAllen and others established a town site in 1904 known then as West McAllen and the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad reached the town site a year later. In 1907, other developers started a town on their own land tract and named it East McAllen.

The two groups joined forces soon thereafter and by 1910 several businesses, churches, residences and a newspaper had been built.

McAllen had a population of 150 in 1910. The next year the City of McAllen was incorporated, and by 1920 the city had grown to over 5,300 residents.

McAllen grew steadily over the next several decades and the U.S. Census reported in 1960 that McAllen had 32,728 residents. In the 1960's, the city did not add many residents, but did build a new city hall, double the size of its library and established a museum and had already added a civic center and airport the previous decade.