In 1902 developer Lon C. Hill purchased 17 square miles of school lands from Cameron County for $13,837.50, on semi-arid land that had been part of the Concepcion de Carricitos Spanish Land Grant to brothers Eugenio and Bartolome Fernandez in 1781. Knowing that irrigation water and rail transportation could transform the property, Hill began building a pumping station on the Rio Grande in 1907 and major gravity-flow canals stretching 14.6 miles north of the river, while urging associates to invest in a railroad to the Valley and dedicate rights-of-way for it. On April 20, 1904, the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway reached his settlement between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, and Hill chose the name Harlingen for the station and post office to honor Uriah Lott’s ancestral homes in Holland and New Jersey. Early nicknames included Rattlesnake Junction and Six-Shooter Junction. As the railroad continued west from Harlingen, the town became a commercial hub, with cotton, citrus, and vegetable production taking hold in the surrounding area and crops packed, refrigerated, and shipped from facilities in the city. The arrival of the Southern Pacific railroad line in early 1927 cemented Harlingen’s status as the Valley’s major transportation hub, and commercial buildings on Jackson, Van Buren, and Harrison and Silk Stocking homes along East Taylor Street reflected the city’s prosperity in the 1920s and early 1930s.