Wisconsin native John Closner established the first steampowered irrigation system in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in 1895, successfully grew sugar cane, and won recognition for a sample entered at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. The award-winning sugar cane and Closner's promotion of the Lower Rio Grande helped convince financiers and agriculturists to invest in the region's irrigation and development potential. In 1909 H.N. Pharr, J.C. Kelly, John C. Conway, and A.W. Roth formed the Louisiana-Rio Grande Canal Company to turn about 40,000 acres of arid land in Hidalgo County into productive farmland by building two pumping stations that diverted water from the Rio Grande through an elaborate irrigation system to a planned community of small farmsteads. The agricultural success of the company, its successor the Hidalgo County Water Improvement District #2, and similar regional operations brought an influx of Anglo farmers and settlers from the midwestern U.S. into this mainly Hispanic region of Texas. Bountiful harvests pushed the Rio Grande Valley to the forefront of Texas agriculture by the mid-20th century and earned it the reputation of the "Winter Garden" of Texas.