Merito

Merito was on a site now at the intersection of North 10th Street, Dove Avenue, and the Southern Pacific line, within the city limits of McAllen in south central Hidalgo County. It was established as a siding on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad as that line extended to McAllen in 1927. An attempt was made to develop a settlement at Merito in the late 1920s and early 1930s but no substantial community materialized. In 1936 Merito reported a population of ten and one business, but by the 1940s no further statistics were available. Merito's small but attractive one-room combination passenger and freight depot was removed in the 1940s and was eventually placed in an exhibit at the Rio Grande Children's Home in Mission. A commercial establishment occupied the former Merito railroad siding in the 1980s. Residents of the Merito site from the 1920s state that though there was a roadside store there, the townsite did not develop because of the effects of the Great Depression.