Donna, Texas
Posted by: linkys
N 26° 10.026 W 098° 03.093
14R E 594786 N 2894535
Small town in the Rio Grande Valley named for the daughter of an early entrepreneur.
Waymark Code: WM7JVN
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 11/02/2009
Views: 12
In 1902 Thomas Jefferson Hooks helped form the La Blanca Agricultural Company, which purchased 23,000 acres that included the present day site of Donna, Texas. Heavily into growing produce, a rail line was soon built to provide a shipping point to the eastern markets. When a rail depot was built in 1907, the new town was named Donna in honor of Donna Fletcher, the young, recently divorced daughter of T J Hooks.
Donna became a key produce shipping point for the valley, and has in more recent times become the home to many of the so-called "winter Texans", northerners who spend the winter months in Donna's moderate climate.
Donna Hooks Fletcher became a successful business woman in her own right, served as the towns first Postmaster, and remained in the town named in her honor for the rest of her life, dying there in 1959.