Mission,Texas - Mission High School

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Mission, Texas - Mission High School

mission.jpg (17690 bytes)
Latest Graphs | Current Weather | About the System | About Mission | Local Links

LATEST GRAPHS

Please note: Performance data from this system and nearly 100 others on schools, businesses, and houses nationwide are presented at www.SolTrex.com, a new website that allows you to make custom graphs of the performance data from any system!

CURRENT WEATHER CONDITIONS

ABOUT THE SYSTEM

mission1.jpg (3175 bytes) The Mission High School system began generating power on February 18, 2000. The system is rated at 4 kilowatts.

ABOUT MISSION

Well over 200 years ago, the Spanish settled the vast area stretching from the Panuco River at Tampico, Mexico, to the Nueces River (at present day Corpus Christi). A commission was sent by the viceroy of Mexico to look into exact portions (porciones). The outcome of this investigation was that in 1762, King Carlos III of Spain ordered a royal patent specifying a more just and equal allotment of the territory. The major problem of supplying water to all the proposed porciones without distinction was ingeniously solved by the Spanish engineers. They laid out tracts of land starting ant the banks of the Rio Bravo and stretching inland so the each tract would have free access to an ample supply of river water. The average porcion measured two-thirds of a mile wide on the river bank and stretched 11 to 16 miles. Thus were established porciones 55 and 57. This was the beginning of the actual history of Rancho La Lomita, site of the historic La Lomita Mission after which the city of Mission was named.

Eventually, Rancho La Lomita Land Company was established by John J. Conway and J.W. Hoit. They bought land from the Oblate Fathers, who had established the La Lomita Mission, and cleared it. This was the first such land company in the western end of Hidalgo county.

Between 1906 and 1908, most of the area's activities centered around La Lomita. In 1908, the Missouri Pacific Railroad established a railway station near the center of the new development, four miles north of the mission. Thus was born the city of Mission, which has grown from a railroad stop to a thriving city of more than 32,000 people.

It was in this area that citrus was reported first planted in the Rio Grande Valley. The citrus industry is now a mult-million dollar business, which is celebrated annually with a gala Citrus Fiesta, participated in by both sides of the Rio Grande.

Former U.S. treasury secretary Lloyd Bentsen and former agriculture secretary Kika de la Garza aren't the first well-known politicans to make Mission home. Nebraska politican William Jennings Bryan was one of the first to buy a plot of land from Conway and Hoit and built his winter home here. Mission was the childhood home longtime Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry, and was the second home to Gov. Allen Shivers during the 50's. Another Mission notable is the actor Trinidad Silva, who appeared in Hillstreet Blues, and actress Sissy Spacek is said to have lived in Mission. The Mission area was also immortalized in Larry McMutry's novel miniseries Lonesome Dove.

LOCAL LINKS

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