BlockFrom the record
One of 23 National Register listings published here for Hidalgo County · listed in 1979 · category: Building.
Sources: the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service
Old Hidalgo School
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
The listing
- What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
- Address. Flora and 4th Sts., Hidalgo, 78557
- When was it listed? October 1979
- Category. building
- Census division. McAllen-Pharr
- National Register reference number. 79002976 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
154 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 154 fires within 5 miles of Old Hidalgo School between 1993 and 2017, burning about 2,611 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 60 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Arson/incendiarism | 60 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 39 |
| Debris and open burning | 38 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 11 |
| Smoking | 3 |
| Natural | 1 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 1 |
| Other causes | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 September 1997 | Smoking | 20 acres | Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge | LATE |
| 22 September 2005 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge | MARI |
| 7 August 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | S BENTSEN PALM FIRE |
| 4 August 2005 | Arson/incendiarism | 2.0 acres | Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge | VELA WOODS N |
| 3 August 1993 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge | HIDALGO3 |
| 29 August 1994 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 45 acres | Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge | COTTAM7 |
| 27 August 2004 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge | MONTYS |
| 25 August 2005 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge | BORDER PATROL |
Storms near this property
5 since 2003Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Hidalgo, the town this property stands in, in 5 storm reports between 2003 and 2024: 4 hail, 1 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2023 | Hail | Hidalgo | $15,000 | Members of the public reported 2 hail in Hidalgo. There were also reports of several cars with windshields either damaged or shattered due to the hail. Time estimated by radar. |
| May 2024 | Hail | Hidalgo | - | Quarter to ping pong size hail was reported near the intersection of McColl and Military Highway...US 281. |
| June 2009 | Hail | Hidalgo | - | Hidalgo County and McAllen City officials each reported penny size hail in southern Hidalgo County. The initial report, estimated around 225 PM CDT, was in the City of Hidalgo near the Rio Grande River; the second was near the McAllen/Miller Airport between 235 and 240 PM. The same cell produced a 52 mph (45 knot) wind gust at McAllen/Miller airport at 237 PM CDT.||Pea to dime size hail would continue in the vicinity of the McAllen Country Club, less than 2 miles east of Miller Airport, through at least 250 PM and perhaps until 300 PM as the parent thunderstorm stretched out along and just south of Federal Highway 83. |
| May 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Hidalgo | - | Thunderstorm winds gusting to 60 mph were reported by the U.S. Border Patrol. |
| April 2003 | Hail | Hidalgo | - | Large hail was reported by the Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge. |
Map coverage status
No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 milesOther National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.
| Photograph | Property | Distance | Listed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old Hidalgo Courthouse and Buildings | 0.4 miles | 1980 | |
 | La Lomita Historic District | 5.7 miles | 1975 |
 | M and J Nelson Building | 7.3 miles | 2008 |
| Cine El Rey | 7.3 miles | 2002 | |
| Casa de Palmas | 7.5 miles | 2003 | |
 | Mary S. and Gordon Griffin House | 7.9 miles | 2014 |
Sources for this property
| National Archives record | The nomination case file for reference 79002976 in Record Group 79. |
| Hidalgo County | All 23 listed properties in this county. |
Provenance
- Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
- Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
- How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
- Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
- Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.