Hidalgo Pumphouse Heritage & Discovery Center

Restored historic structure offers a hands-on experience and includes exhibits on the effects of irrigation on the Lower Rio Grande Valley. It contains the only remaining steam pumps in the nation, and is listed as a National Register of Historic Places Landmark and a Texas Recorded Historic Landmark. When the pumps were built in 1909, the landscape was dotted with horses and cows. After the pumps began distributing water to some 72,000 farms, agriculture boomed and the scenery changed from vast ranchland to a garden of orchards and cotton fields.