DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the marker outside this building tells it, and I'll give it to you straight. Now, the Kiwanis International organization has had clubs meeting in rented halls and borrowed spaces going all the way back to its beginnings — the very first Kiwanis club took root in Detroit, Michigan, and from there the organization spread. Thirteen years after that first club formed in Detroit, something happened down here in the Rio Grande Valley that hadn't happened anywhere else in the whole Kiwanis world.
The Pharr club had only been chartered for one year — one year — when they went ahead and did what no local Kiwanis club had ever done before. They built their own place. Their own.
In 1928, this Mission style building went up, and it became the first meeting place in all of Kiwanis International that was actually owned by a local club. Not leased. Not borrowed.
Owned. Now, they didn't build it just for Tuesday night meetings and handshakes. They designed it to serve as a community center — and it delivered on that promise.
Civic functions, community meetings, and for a good stretch it housed the offices of the city Chamber of Commerce right inside these walls. Pharr was a young club with a bold idea, and they put it in brick and mortar for the whole organization to take note of. First in Kiwanis history.
Right here in Hidalgo County, Texas.
What the marker says
This Mission style building was the first meeting place in the Kiwanis International organization owned by a local club. It was built in 1928, 13 years after the formation of the first Kiwanis club in Detroit, Michigan, and one year after the Pharr club was chartered. Designed to serve as a community center, it has been used for a variety of civic functions and meetings and has housed offices of the city Chamber of Commerce. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981