Editing La Joya, Texas (section)

==History==
Its name, meaning "the jewel", was inspired by a small natural lake west of the city; early settlers were said to observe that the lake shined in the sun like a jewel.<ref name="auto">{{cite web |url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hjl02 |title=LA JOYA, TX |first=Amancio J. |last=Chapa, Jr. |date=15 June 2010 |website=tshaonline.org |accessdate=3 October 2017}}</ref> The site on which La Joya was founded was part of what was known as "Los Ejidos de Reynosa Viejo". The ''ejidos'' were the shared grazing lands used for the livestock of the settlers of Reynosa Viejo ("Old Reynosa"). During the early 1800s, at the site of what is now La Joya, Francisco de la Garza, a descendant of the early colonizers of the area who soon decided to change his last name from de la Garza to Garza, founded a community, called "Tabasco", adjacent to the northern bank of the [[Rio Grande]]. It was a prosperous community that died out after floods in 1908 and 1909. The settlers moved their belongings just north to higher and less flood-prone ground, present-day La Joya.<ref name="auto"/>