Vintage 1950s Sweetmex Crate Label 🍊 Weslaco, TX, Pride of Mexico!

Who Packed Sweetmex Oranges? 🍊 Sweetmex Oranges, "Pride of Mexico!", Chas. A. Rogers & Sons, Weslaco, Texas

Size: 9" x 9" ~ Little to slight edge wear. Never would notice on display but please see pictures and judge for yourself.

What a smile! This is a vintage 1950s Sweetmex orange crate label, shipped by Chas. A. Rogers & Sons of Weslaco, Texas. A beautiful young woman with long dark braids, a big green bow and a double strand of green beads beams out from under a wide straw sombrero with a key-pattern band and embroidered flowers, holding up a little yellow card that says "Pride of Mexico!" Sweetmex runs across the bright red ground in huge navy letters outlined in white, with ORANGES in yellow underneath.

My pictures seriously don't do it justice.

🏷️ What's Printed on It

• Pride of Mexico!
• Sweetmex ORANGES
• PACKED BY EMPACADORA BUENA VISTA, ALLENDE, N. L.
• SHIPPED BY CHAS. A. ROGERS & SONS, WESLACO, TEXAS
• PRODUCE OF MEXICO

Read it close and this label crosses a border. The oranges were packed at the Empacadora Buena Vista (empacadora is Spanish for packing house) in Allende, Nuevo León, and shipped by the Rogers family out of Weslaco in the Rio Grande Valley. That's where the name comes from: sweet oranges from Mexico, "Sweetmex."

🌄 Allende, in Mexico's Citrus Country

Allende sits about 29 miles south of Monterrey on the highway to Linares, in the part of Nuevo León they call the Región Citrícola, the Citrus Region, right next door to Montemorelos. It's orange country to this day, along with lemons, mandarins and grapefruit. The site at El Reparo was approved for a new town on April 15, 1841, and on March 12, 1850 the state congress made it the Villa de Allende, named for Ignacio Allende, one of the heroes of Mexican independence.

🌴 Weslaco and the Rogers Family

Weslaco has one of the best town names in Texas. The W.E. Stewart Land Company bought the land on December 14, 1917, and the town took its name from the company's initials: W-E-S-La-Co. It was platted in 1919, got its post office in 1920, organized a Citrus Growers Association in 1940, and by the 1947-48 season was shipping more than 2,000 carloads of produce.

Chas. A. Rogers & Sons shipped fruit under more than one brand. The Rogers firm ended up owning the Sweetex citrus trademark, first used in 1930 by Weslaco Farmers, Inc. and registered in 1931, and filed the Rogers name for fresh fruits and vegetables in 1976. Chas. A. Rogers & Sons, Inc. is still in the produce business today, over in Donna, Texas.

🏡 Display

Crate Labels are a reminder of a bygone era but the amazing lithography process is unparalleled even to this day in my opinion. Museums and Art Institutes have galleries dedicated to them and more and more collectors are seeking these out to preserve their history. Once the limited supply for sale is gone and on display with collectors or in galleries then they will be very difficult to acquire.

Imagine this amazing vintage advertising hanging as home decor in any room of your home instead of a museum! She lights up a kitchen or a Southwest-style room, and she's a perfect gift for anybody from the Rio Grande Valley, Monterrey or Nuevo León.