Donna: Named for the Daughter
Near Mcallen, Texas
Donna was born in July of nineteen oh four when the railroad reached this stretch of the Rio Grande Valley. Developer T. J. Hooks had already purchased twenty-three thousand acres of river-front land for his agricultural company, and when it came time to name the new rail stop, he named it for his twenty-one-year-old daughter, Donna Hooks Fletcher, who had settled part of the land as the Alameda Ranch.
The Valley's rich alluvial soil and new irrigation canals made Donna an agricultural powerhouse almost immediately. By nineteen oh eight, it was being reported as the Texas railroad station that shipped more produce in a single year than any other. Cotton, onions, and citrus moved out of Donna and into markets across the country, establishing the Rio Grande Valley's identity as one of the most productive farming regions in the American South.
