McAllen
— — a flyway town that opens its hand for the birds.
Not only on a wall.
“A subtropical city near the southern tip of Texas, about ten kilometres north of the Rio Grande and the border crossing into Reynosa. McAllen is the urban centre of the lower valley, citrus country flattened to the horizon, and the first stop on the Central Flyway for the warblers and raptors heading north each spring. Quinta Mazatlán, a Spanish-Revival adobe at the edge of town, gives the migration a porch to land on.
McAllen, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
McAllen sits in Hidalgo County, Texas, at the southern end of the lower Rio Grande Valley, about ten kilometres north of the river and the city of Reynosa across the border in Tamaulipas. The 2020 census recorded a population of 142,210, predominantly Hispanic, and the metropolitan area runs to roughly 870,000. The land is flat, the elevation about 37 metres, and the climate subtropical, with mild winters and long humid summers cooled only by Gulf breezes.
The lower Rio Grande Valley sits on the Central Flyway, the migratory corridor used by hundreds of bird species moving between North and South America. More than 500 species have been recorded across the valley's protected sites, an unusually high count for an urban region and the reason the World Birding Center anchors its Quinta Mazatlán site in McAllen. Peak movement runs March through May, with green jays, kiskadees and chachalacas resident across every season.
Quinta Mazatlán is open Tuesday through Saturday, with a small entry fee and several kilometres of paved trails through the thornscrub. The historic adobe, completed in 1935, was built by Jason Matthews as a winter residence and reads as the Spanish-Colonial Revival the era loved. The McAllen International Museum of Art & Science sits a kilometre east, and the city's downtown sits another two kilometres beyond that. Spring break crowds peak in March.