HIDALGO COUNTY, TEXAS - RANCHO BLANCO CEMETERY

Submitted by cshaffer@houston.rr.com
  (typed from records provided by surveyors)

Surveyed by Goldsby Goza and Fran Isbel on January 19 and 26, 1980.
COPYRIGHT  (c) HIDALGO COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

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LOCATION: Two and a half miles south of Pharr on Rancho Blanco road at 
US 281, northwest corner.
SURVEYED: Anna May Kelly, November 1988. 
PERSPECTIVE: There is a single grave, facing south, towards the entrance

NOTE:  Landcaped by Herrera Nursery of McAllen, there are plantings of
arbor vitae, palms, Brazilian pepper, bougainvillea, and Rio Grande ash
trees bordering three sides.  Palms border the south side.  Cemetery 
measure two acres.  At the north end of the grounds is located Casa Maria,
a facility of the Pharr Oratory, dedicated to counseling for women.


HISTORY:  John C. Kelly was born in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1862.  He moved
to Belton, Texas as a young man, and later to Waco.  He first came to the 
Valley in 1904, with his wife Cherrie, sons Ben, Presley, and Connally, and 
daughter Odelle.  He returned in 1906 and with a partner, bought a 16,000-
acre tract that had frontage on the Rio Grande and extended 16 miles north.
This tract is listed on deed records and maps as the Kelly-Pharr Tract, in 
Porcion 69.

In 1909, Kelly and his partner, Henry N. Pharr, formed the Louisiana Rio-
Grande Sugar Company and began work on a canal system for irrigation.  In 
1910, they formed the Pharr Townsite Company with Mr. Kelly as president. 
This company sold lots in the new 640-acre city and in open land on the 
Kelly-Pharr subdivision.  Kelly named the city Pharr, after his partner. 
It was incorporated in 1916.

Kelly's own ranch south of the town site, originally brush land, housed
mules used for land clearing.  He named his ranch Casa Blanca after the 
family home in Waco, a large white house purchased by the Kelly family in 
1895.  By 1920, he was farming the ranch, having sent his son Ben to 
supervise operations, and using Japanese farmers to work the land.  Kelly
died in 1937.

The family sold most of the original acreage in 1973, keeping five acres
near the present Kelly Cemetery.  It has been incorporated into the Pharr
city limits.

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The pink granite headstone is inscribed:

John Connally Kelly
September 4, 1899                    February 21, 1966


End of Rancho Blanco Cemetery.