Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes
Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This brick and stone grotto was constructed about 1869-70 on the grounds of the Convent of the Congregation of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, a cloistered order. Built under the supervision of Sister Theresa Solis and opened to the public in 1926, it contains petrified wood from Roma (120 miles northwest) and stones from European grottos and the Grave of St. Theresa. The convent was demolished in 1969 and the grotto was relocated here. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On the grounds of a cloistered convent in Brownsville, the Sisters of the Congregation of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament raised a brick-and-stone grotto around 1869-70, a replica of the famous Lourdes shrine in France. Sister Theresa Solis oversaw its construction, and it was studded with petrified wood from Roma and stones carried from grottos across Europe. Opened to the public in 1926, it outlived the convent itself, which was demolished in 1969, and was carefully relocated to survive.
Why it matters
It reflects the deep Catholic heritage of the Rio Grande borderlands and the labor of women religious who shaped community life along the lower Rio Grande.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Sister Theresa Solis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Convent of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament
Brownsville, TX
In 1853 a colony of the cloistered Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament—the order's first in America—arrived in frontier Brownsville from Lyons, France, and opened a school in a bare warehouse, hand-printing their own bilingual textbooks. Through Indian raids, yellow fever, storms, and the Civil War the nuns taught without pause; after a hurricane destroyed their first convent in 1867 they rebuilt a distinctive New Orleans French–style structure that served as a girls' school for generations.
Brulay House
Brownsville, TX
In 1925 Louis and Inez Brulay hired prominent Brownsville architect E. Guy Holliday to design this Spanish-Mediterranean home in the city's first suburb, complete with curved archways, white textured stucco, and a red terracotta roof. Louis was the son of George Brulay, a French immigrant whose Brulay Sugar Plantation outside the city was among the region's early agricultural ventures.
Manautou House
Brownsville, TX
Enrique Manautou, a native of Mexico who became one of Brownsville's leading merchants and civic figures, commissioned this family residence in 1925 from local architect Edward Guy Holliday. Its hipped tile roof and broad, sheltering eaves make it a rare Texas example of the Prairie School style pioneered in the Midwest. The Manautou family kept the home for decades after his death, and it endures as a border-city landmark.
Pitt House
Brownsville, TX
English immigrant Arthur Pitt arrived in Galveston in 1909, found work at a citrus nursery, and by 1918 had founded a Rio Grande Valley citrus-tree business he would run for sixty years. In 1930 he and his wife, Evelyn Roper Pitt, commissioned architect E. Guy Holliday—who had worked with El Paso's Trost & Trost—to design this Spanish Revival home, whose custom tilework and cross-patterned foyer window nodded to Pitt's British heritage.