El Globo Nuevo
Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas
Marker Inscription
El Globo Nuevo is a complex consisting of a one-story border brick style storehouse built in 1897 and operated until 1920 by Mexican immigrants Adolfo Garza-Galvan (1856-1923) and his elder brother, Manuel (1847-1926), and a free-standing folk victorian cottage known as the Garza House built circa 1894. El Globo Nuevo is an early example of Mexican vernacular planning, a primarily one-room-deep sequence of rooms arranged in an l-plan configuration, paired with separate living quarters. The storehouse is plaster-faced brick with a hipped-roof attic above the building’s corner bays. The cottage, while also made with plaster-faced brick, has jerkin-headed gabled roofs. Garza and his wife, Virginia Larrea-Valdez de Garza (1873-1952), lived in the house until her death in 1952, upon which the property passed to her sister, Eloisa Larrea Barreda. The property has since stayed in the Barreda family.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
El Globo Nuevo pairs a one-story 'border brick' storehouse built in 1897 with a free-standing folk Victorian cottage, the Garza House, built about 1894. The complex was raised and operated until 1920 by Mexican immigrant brothers Adolfo and Manuel Garza-Galvan, its one-room-deep L-plan an early example of Mexican vernacular building on the Texas side of the river. Adolfo and his wife Virginia lived in the cottage until her death in 1952, and the property has remained with the family's descendants.
Why it matters
The complex preserves the everyday commercial architecture and immigrant enterprise of the nineteenth-century Rio Grande border.
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Related people
- · Adolfo Garza-Galvan
- · Manuel Garza-Galvan
- · Virginia Larrea-Valdez de Garza
Themes & tags
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