Runn

Run (Runn) is on U.S. Highway 281 seven miles south of Donna in Hidalgo County. In 1898 A. F. Hester and Tom J. Hooks, who were rice growing partners in the Beaumont region, bought options on 13,000 acres of the twenty-five-league Llano Grande royal land grant made to Capt. Juan Hinojosa of Reynosa in 1790. By 1902 sandaled workmen were clearing land and building canals and laterals with giant scrapers pulled by mule teams. In midsummer 1903 the brothers George and Ed Ruthven brought their families to the railway terminus at Alice; then they traveled by wagon seven days to Champion's Store on the Old Military Road. George Ruthven opened a general store and served as postmaster before moving to Donna in 1906. The post office was officially named Run, a contraction of Ruthven, in 1904; it was moved to Champion's Store, a jacal of whitewashed adobe with thatched roof and hard-packed earth floor. Andrew Champion, Sr., a native of Santa Maria and former Texas Ranger, was Run postmaster from 1906 to 1912. The store was adjacent to the commodious Champion home and became a nucleus for settlers in the newly cleared brushland. Both United States and Mexican currency were used, the ratio being two to one. The Run post office closed in 1916 but operated again from 1926 until 1929.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.