LOCATION: Third Street off US 281 in Hidalgo, Texas

SURVEYED: Partial (from historical records).

HISTORY: When the Spanish colonial city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, founded 1749, was moved in 1802 to a new site 12 miles downstream to escape flooding, a small village lay opposite on the Texas bank of the Rio Grande. It was known as La Habitacion (Sp. habitat, dwelling) or Rancho San Luisito.

Rancher John Young settled a few miles from the village about 1848 and acquired huge tracts of land including La Habitacion. In 1851, Young licensed a ferry between La Habitacion and Reynosa. That same year, he founded a trading post in partnership with lawyer E. D.Smith and merchant John McAllen. They named the resulting community Edinburgh after Young’s native city in Scotland.

When Hidalgo County was formed from Cameron County in 1852, Edinburgh became the county seat. Young ran the store and bought hides. In 1876, the name Edinburgh was changed to Hidalgo.

After repeated flooding ate away much of the village of Hidalgo and threatened to engulf the courthouse, the county seat was moved in 1908 to a more central location, at the undeveloped townsite of Chapin (renamed Edinburg, without the "h, " in 1911).

Hidalgo remains a port of entry to Mexico. It was incorporated by 1931.

Hidalgo City Cemetery dates from 1884, when burials around town were reinterred in the new cemetery. Recently enlarged, the cemetery is maintained by the Hidalgo Parks and Streets Department and is governed by a Cemetery Board. It is located in the Historic District of Hidalgo.

Oldest grave marker is that of Elder B. Barton (1815-1884), first buried in the courtyard of the courthouse. A veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, Barton married John Young’s 15-year-old sister-in-law. Maria de los Santos Balli; they had 16 children. An agent for John Young, he became prominent in county affairs.

Reynosa bridge-builder Joe Pate and his brother Bill are interred in the Hidalgo Cemetery as is the infamous bootlegger Pancho Garza.