Who’s Who

Ruth Young McGonigle

Missing from the Valley’s modern line-up were Mexican-American architects. Julio Rafael Guerra (1927-1997) of McAllen was the sole Mexican-American registered architect in the Valley until the 1970s; he practiced as the associate and subsequent partner of the Weslaco architect William C. Baxter. Jimmie Villegas, Jr., (1934-2009) was a designer for Wilhite & Winans of Brownsville but he was never licensed as an architect. Homero Elizondo of Harlingen (1922-1979) was a draftsman and designer for the Gloor Lumber Co.; in this capacity Elizondo designed many of the middle-income subdivision houses that Gloor built in Harlingen and Brownville. Also missing from this picture were women architects. The Brownsville artist and architectural designer Ruth Young McGonigle (1902-1984) pursued an independent practice that lasted from the 1950s through the 1970s but she never sought to be licensed, although she was an early graduate of the Rice Institute architecture department. Van Glass, the wife of Cocke, Bowman & York’s draftsman Ed Glass, was a brilliant modern interior designer; she ran New Living, Harlingen’s “good design” shop, which was initially housed in the Clarke & Courts Building.

Architects from outside the Valley who produced substantial works in Harlingen and Brownsville included Wiltshire & Fisher of Dallas (F&S Partners, now Smith Group), Caudill Rowlett Scott of Bryan (now part of HOK), the Austin architects Page, Southerland & Page (now Page), the San Antonio architects Phelps & Dewees & Simmons, and the Corpus Christi architectsWade, Gibson & Martin. O’Neil Ford of San Antonio and Richard S. Colley of Corpus Christi designed multiple buildings in McAllen.