Old Pharr City Hall

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Old Pharr City Hall, out there in Hidalgo County. Now settle in, because this little building has stories stacked inside it like rooms within rooms. It started back in 1911, when the Pharr Townsite Co. put this structure up.

The man running that operation was John C. Kelly, born in 1862 and died in 1937, and the marker names him as a co-founder of Pharr itself. So right from the start, you're looking at a building tied to the very bones of this town.

And it didn't sit idle. Under that one roof you had the first bank, the post office, a confectionary, a drugstore, and the first irrigation and canal company. All of it, right there together.

Five distinct enterprises sharing the same walls. That's not a building, that's practically a whole civilization in miniature. Then came 1916.

Pharr was incorporated, and this structure was tapped to be the first City Hall. Fitting, really, given how much civic life had already passed through its doors. Now here's the part of the story that tends to make people stop and think.

During the Depression, the city ran short on policemen. Not a little short. Short enough that they had to get creative.

Their solution? They placed an electric light on top of the building to alert officers to trouble. One light, up high, doing the work that a full force of men couldn't.

You can almost picture it glowing out over the streets of Pharr on a quiet, nervous night. City government eventually moved on in 1951, but the building didn't go dark. It kept right on hosting businesses, offices, civic meetings.

It had been too many things to too many people to just close up. Some places have one life. This one, built in 1911 by the Pharr Townsite Co. and still standing when the marker was recorded in 1984, just kept finding new ones.

What the marker says

This structure was completed in 1911 by the Pharr Townsite Co., operated by John C. Kelly (1862-1937), a co-founder of Pharr. It housed the first bank, the post office, a confectionary, a drugstore, and the first irrigation and canal company. The building became the first City Hall in 1916, when Pharr was incorporated. Due to a shortage of policemen during the Depression, an electric light was placed on top of the building to alert officers to trouble. When the city government moved in 1951, the Old Pharr City Hall housed businesses and offices and was used for civic meetings. (1984)