Message from the director

Dear friends and supporters,

I hope this message finds each of you well and healthy! We are so proud to be approaching our seventeenth year in service to our community this coming June 2025! During 2024, MHC operated at normal levels and resumed our full pre-pandemic operating hours.

2024 was an extremely productive year for MHC and found us working towards achieving our Capital Campaign Funds drive for our addition, “The Annex”. I am proud and pleased to announce that during the latter part of 2024, we achieved our Annex funding goals and hope to begin working towards becoming “shovel ready” towards the end of 2025. This 2-story building will certainly boost our gallery, storage and work space and be a beautiful addition to the museum and for downtown McAllen.

We continued to work to bring services to our community and maintain our collection and facility in top shape. Rotating exhibits with our partners from Humanities Texas, the Bob Bullock Museum continued to draw large groups of visitors. The 1st Annual McHi Class Reunion reception for the classes of 1965 and 1975 drew over 120 guests to the museum. A reception held in honor of Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa for his gift unveiling to MHC was a great success. He gifted MHC a photograph of himself alongside the iconic Cesar Chavez advocating for farmworkers circa late 1960.

The McGrinch family event held in mid-December drew over 250 attendees. MHC gifted all the children goodie bags and McGrinch tees and families were welcome to take photos with our friendly McGrinch!

We were very pleased to host the reception for the 1st Annual STC Summit: South Texas Public History, Culture, Heritage, Archives and Museums Summit. The reception provided networking opportunities for the museum professionals from the State and Region that participated in this event.

Our museum store, La Tiendita, which is also an online store continues to be highly successful. We offer a range of historical books, books by local authors, videos, postcards, and apparel along with fun McAllen souvenirs, the popular board game “McAllenopoly” and items crafted by local artisans.

Our annual fundraiser: Chuckwagon Dinner in partnership with Macaroni Grill McAllen was, once again, a sold-out event and we are grateful to all our repeat supporters of this dinner fundraiser!

The beautiful “Greetings from McAllen” mural completed in late 2021 continues to drive guests to the La Placita park for photos. Our intention is twofold: to promote the museum and elevate our thriving downtown McAllen for area residents.

I am very thankful for our dedicated staff: Gabriel Elizondo- Marketing and social media Director, Erica Almazan, Lily Hernandez, and Rosie Rodriguez-Museum Services, Martin Davila, groundskeeper, Joe Vidales and Pikey Rodriguez, consultants. As always, we are so thankful for our historian and tour guide, Spud Brown who is also one of our museum founders.

Our loyal Board of Directors are also strong supporters along my joint Co-Founders: Dr. Nedra Kinerk and Spurgeon “Spud” Brown. These very special people are deeply appreciated!

As always, we thank all our friends in the community along with the City of McAllen for their ongoing support of MHC! Please visit the museum soon! My warmest regards to each of you!

Elva M. Cerda
MHC Director

2024 Board of Directors

John M. Kreidler, President
Dr. Nedra Kinerk, Vice President
Elva M. Cerda, Secretary/Treasurer
Danny Boultinghouse
Bill Stocker
Irma Murray
Spurgeon “Spud” Brown, Emeritus Director

Our Mission Statement

The McAllen Heritage Center, Inc. (MHC) is a nonprofit Corporation. The concise mission statement of the MHC is: Our mission is to provide a place to exhibit and assist in the preservation of documents, papers, pictures, works of art, records, maps, artifacts and writings of historical, traditional or cultural value. The MHC wants to perpetuate and educate about those customs of the people, traditions and folklore, which beautify and enrich the community life of historic McAllen, Texas.