The Museum of South Texas History is located in Edinburg, Texas. It features exhibits on the history of the Rio Grande Valley, as well as the rest of South Texas.
The museum now owns more than a city block, located on the square in Edinburg. The Museum opened in 1970 as the Hidalgo County Historical Museum. It was originally housed in Hidalgo County’s Old Jail, a Texas National Landmark, built in 1910. The Museum has since expanded to three main buildings, and gives visitors a full understanding of regional history from prehistoric times and following through to the 20th century.
Collections include a giant prehistoric mosasaur and ice age mammoth, and follow to Coahuiltecan Indians, the Spanish exploration and colonization, the Mexican War, the U.S Civil War, the Steamboat era, and the Cattle Kingdom.
In November 2007, the final installment to the exhibits was unveiled, River Crossroads. The final stop on the tour, Crossroads takes the visitor through the prominence of the “Citrus Era,” the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution, and ends the journey with most recent area history.
The Margaret H. McAllen Memorial Archives house the Valley’s largest collection of historical photographs, plus documents and maps, available for research in the expanded quarters.
The Museum Store offers the largest selection of South Texas history books and memorabilia in the Rio Grande Valley.
Famous quotes containing the words museum of, museum, south, texas and/or history:
“A Museum of fetishes would give special attention to the history of underwear.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“One can think of life after the fish is in the canoe.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 23, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)
“To lib and die in Dixie!
Away, away, away down South in Dixie!”
—Daniel Decatur Emmett (1815–1904)
“Calling a taxi in Texas is like calling a rabbi in Iraq.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)