John J. Linn

Victoria, TX

English-born conservationist, composer, and cattleman J. Meredith "Jack" Tatton came to Texas in 1930 and married Victoria native Virginia Drake Hallinan, a great-granddaughter of legendary rancher Thomas O'Connor. In 1936 they commissioned noted Houston architect John F. Staub—famed for his refined country houses—to design this colonial revival and Monterey-influenced home. It later passed to the Welder-Murphy family, tying together several of south Texas's great cattle-ranching dynasties.

Victoria, TX

Laid out by Martín De León, the empresario who founded Victoria in the 1820s, this square began life as the Plaza de la Constitución, patterned on the central plazas of traditional Spanish municipalities. His son-in-law José M. Carbajal expanded the plan in an 1830s survey, and over the decades the square gained a brick-lined well, a windmill, a bandstand, and Pompeo Coppini's 1912 Confederate memorial. In 1941 the United Daughters of the Confederacy led a beautification effort that renamed it De León Plaza in honor of the city's founder.

Victoria, TX

Born at Burgos, Mexico, in 1765, Martín De León rose as a Spanish army captain before turning empresario. Mexican land grants in 1824 and 1829 let him settle scores of families and found the town of Victoria—the only Texas colony where Mexican customs and traditions predominated. He died there in 1833.

Victoria, TX

German-born Charles (Carl) August Beck bought forty acres here in 1862 and a decade later built this Greek Revival house as a wedding gift for his son Charles Theodore Beck. It became headquarters for a cattle operation that grew to roughly 25,000 acres, and in 1923 it turned to dairying under Arthur Yariger, whose family has held it since. The home marks the sweep of Texas ranching from open range to dairy farm.