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A store that saw customers line up several yards deep when it opened at the beginnings of the Rio Grande Valley Premium Outlets faced a quiet different reality a year ago. The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store of Patricia Barrera was shut down for a few weeks last spring along with the other stores at […]

Historic Mercedes Cemeteries Memorialize European Immigrants On the corner of Anacuitas and Mile 1W roads, two historic cemeteries sit catty-corner to each other. One is fairly well known with its historical connection to one of the oldest churches in the Diocese of Brownsville. It’s Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery. Its origins go back to 1910 […]

From her home to the first store near the H-E-B, and now on Texas Avenue, Lyz De La Cerda has kept one thing in mind. “I’m from here, so I wanted to stay here,’’ De La Cerda said of her Lyz’s Jewelry Box in Mercedes. “I’ve been at (trade) shows where someone will say, `Hey, […]

Getting back from World War I, Roy Harrell became a Texas Ranger in South Texas. A 1920 photo shows him on horseback, taking a moment with his mount looking to Harrell’s right, as horse and rider stand near the Ranger’s home in Mercedes. He wasn’t a Ranger for long. Harrell could make more money working […]

Through Hurricane Hanna, then during a pandemic, with the ordeal of a days-long freeze to come, there was at least one comforting thought for Mercedes residents. Borderland Hardware was there with the supplies and items needed to get through a crisis. It’s what Borderland Hardware has been doing for over 100 years just as it […]

Growing up on north Vermont Street in Mercedes, Maria Carmen Reyes saw firsthand what it takes to own and run a business as the daughter of a shopkeeper. Garcia’s Grocery Store was the business and Petrita Garcia as the owner and proprietor kept things straight and her children busy working at the store. It doubled […]

Coping with COVID-19 has brought restrictions with it in terms of gathering in public places and the amount of contact allowed with non-family members. One area that has been uninhibited and free from restrictions is enjoying time in the great outdoors – and there’s no better place in the Rio Grande Valley to enjoy time […]

Everything Texan is what Steven Gallegos is about and he’s nurturing a brand being built in Mercedes. Located downtown appropriately enough on Texas Avenue, Gallegos and his TRW Hat Co., features a dazzling selection of caps with a Texas flavor and designs unique to his Mercedes-based company. The TRW Hat brand features a look that […]

It started as a striking billboard by Expressway 77/83 with a positive message for a new year. “I Love Mercedes,’’ the billboard entering the city says boldly, with a red heart logo to show affection for the city. “The Queen City of The Valley,’’ it continues below the bold black letters, and then, “A Place […]

The Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show is persevering through the challenges of a pandemic and the recent deep freeze of February in making revised plans to put on its 82nd edition. The iconic event, which was started in Mercedes in 1940 and has never called another city home, will hold its spring 2021 edition in […]