Today we drove over to Hidalgo, TX so that I could go through the Hidalgo Pumphouse Museum. The trip is faster if you take I2 over to Pharr, TX and then drop down to to Hidalgo but we chose to take US281 which runs closer to the border. It was a 41 mile trip, driving time close to one hour.
Reminiscing - In the 70's, when we lived in Park Forest, a suburb on the south side of Chicago, I used to come to a couple of cities on the east side of Texas to do structural inspection work, for a couple of weeks. One year, after I was done with the inspection work, I took some vacation time and Kathy and our boys flew down down to Houston. We drove along the coast and then along the border. We walked across the bridge from Brownsville, TX into Matamoras, Mexico and said, "This does not look like any place we want to be." We turned around and walked back across. We did the same think at Hidalgo/Reynosa. We tried a 3rd time about 150 miles further along the border, in Laredo/Nuevo Laredo. At that time Nuevo Laredo was a nice town. We spent most of the day walking around on the Mexican side of the border. All three of those crossings are now listed as some of the most dangerous places for US tourists to cross into Mexico.
The Hidalgo Pumphouse was built in 1909 to provide commercial scale irrigation water to the area. The pumps were run by steam engines that were initially fired with mesquite. Additional pumps were added on a regular basis until eventually the Pumphouse had a peak capacity of 350,000 gallons/minute. One "factoid" posted on the wall said that it takes one million gallons of water to produce one bale of cotton. In 1983 the Pumphouse was finally shutdown when it was replaced by a new facility with electric pumps.
You could do a self-guided walking tour of the facility.
The grounds around the Pumphouse were quite pleasant. Kathy wasn't interested in going through the Pumphouse so she walked around the grounds a little.
By the time I finished exploring it was time for lunch. We headed over to the Black Diamond BBQ, a few blocks away.
We both ordered brisket sandwiches with green beans and mac and cheese for sides. The food was excellent.
Across the street and down the block a little was the old courthouse. We didn't go down to see if it was open.
Below are some photos I took as we traveled back and forth. The wind was blowing and there was a lot of dust in the air.
The border wall and onions. We saw thousands of acres of onions, and a lot of cabbages.
Border crossing at Pharr, TX.
More border wall and onions.
Harvesting onions.
Entrance for the Rio Gun Club south of La Feria, TX.
When we got back home we went grocery shopping. It was a full day.
God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.
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