Laguna Seca Ranch
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[edit] History
The Laguna Seca Ranch was initially established in the year 1867 by Macedonio Vela Senior and his wife Mercedes Chapa Cantu. Approximately ten years earlier, Macedonio Vela Senior fled from Mexico to escape the wave of executions associated with the War of Reform. In 1867 he purchased one square league (4428 acres) pertaining to the Santa Anita Land Grant from John and Salome Balli McAllen.,
In the era spanning 1880 to 1890, he acquired more adjacent real estate holdings to yield a ranch over 75,000 acres in extent; during this decade he grazed cattle, horses, and mules, and became an exporter of donkeys to Cuba. The first citrus trees in Hidalgo County were planted within the ranch property. Vela's grandson, Reynaldo Vela, discovered an artesian well which supplies a lake of about five acres in size, which lake was historically and inexplicably called Dry Lake. In the year 1975 a historical marker was placed at the ranch. In recent times family members manage the ranch holding, although it is subdivided into three tangent parcels.
