Donna

History

Donna is in southeastern Hidalgo County, east of McAllen, in territory that was granted to Lino Cabazos as part of the La Blanca land grant on May 19, 1834, by the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The Cabazos family inhabited the area for at least twenty years after taking possession of the land, and their descendants continued to live in the area into the twentieth century. The first known Anglo-American settler was John F. Webber, who, accompanied by his wife Sylvia (Hector), a former slave, settled in the area in 1839. The Webbers moved to the area in order to escape persecution for their interracial marriage. Several families from northern states, including the Ruthven, Champion, and Hooks families, settled the area. Thomas Jefferson Hooks arrived in the Lower Rio Grande valley in 1900 and the following year moved his family to Run in southeastern Hidalgo County. In May 1902 he helped to form the La Blanca Agricultural Company, which purchased fronting the river east and west of the site of present Donna and extending north . He gave part of his purchase to his 21-year-old daughter, Donna Hooks Fletcher, a divorcée. She settled in the area and established the Alameda (Grove) Ranch. Fletcher stocked the ranch with Jersey cattle purchased from the Lassater Ranch in Falfurrias and ran a successful butter business. The Hidalgo and San Miguel Extension (later called the Sam Fordyce Branch) of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway reached the site in July 1904, when the town was founded. In 1907 the town received a depot and was named "Donna" in honor of Donna Fletcher (1879-1969), who was postmistress when the Donna post office opened in 1908. That year the first store in west Donna was established by Ed Ruthven, and the community was recognized as the Texas…

Geography

Donna is located in southern Texas at (26.170336, –98.049037). It is bordered on the east by the city of Weslaco and on the west by Alamo. The southern boundary of Donna is a few miles north of the Rio Grande, the international border between the United States and Mexico. Interstate 2/U.S. Highway 83 pass through the northern side of the city, leading west to McAllen and east to Harlingen. Via McAllen it is south of San Antonio. Hooks Avenue is the main road through the center of Donna. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which , or 0.13%, are water. The city can be classified as a hot semiarid climate (Köppen: BSh) similar to that found in southwest Texas and northwest Mexico. Donna, according to the climate map and the data used can be considered the easternmost city with a semi-arid climate in the eastern United States, not far from a humid subtropical climate due to the greater proximity of the coast, which probably limits the group B of Köppen further east of the state. •North Donna •South Donna •Val Verde •Lunar Heights Colonia In 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency detected a presence of polychlorinated biphenyls in the fish at Donna Reservoir and Canal System, also known as Donna Lake, during an investigation of a disproportionate number of neural tube defects in the area, with the most likely cause being stated as being an old siphon constructed around 1928. The Texas Department of State Health Services would place a ban on fishing in the lake in 1994 due to potential public health risk, with the EPA declaring it a Superfund site and placing it on the National Priorities List in 2008. In 2020, the EPA and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality officially began removing contaminated sediments and…

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• WESLACO H S
  High · WESLACO · 2,553 students · 16.5:1 ratio
• PSJA EARLY COLLEGE H S
  High · SAN JUAN · 2,459 students · 14.2:1 ratio
• EDINBURG H S
  High · EDINBURG · 2,433 students · 14.2:1 ratio
• PSJA NORTH EARLY COLLEGE H S
  High · PHARR · 2,176 students · 15:1 ratio
• DONNA H S
  High · DONNA · 2,095 students · 14.7:1 ratio
• DONNA NORTH H S
  High · DONNA · 2,091 students · 14.2:1 ratio
• WESLACO EAST H S
  High · WESLACO · 2,004 students · 14.3:1 ratio
• VANGUARD REMBRANDT
  Other · PHARR · 1,873 students · 14.3:1 ratio