Manautou Building
Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas
Marker Inscription
ENRIQUE MANAUTOU CAME TO TEXAS FROM MEXICO IN 1902. WITH AREA COMMERCE BOLSTERED BY THE ARRIVAL OF THE RAILROAD AND MEXICAN REVOLUTION REFUGEES, HE BEGAN A STRING OF DRY GOODS STORES IN THE LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY IN 1913. MANAUTOU MOVED TO BROWNSVILLE IN THE EARLY 1920s WITH HIS WIFE, IRENE G. MANAUTOU. IN 1928, HE OPENED THE E. MANAUTOU DEPARTMENT STORE IN THE HISTORIC MARKET SQUARE DISTRICT. PAGE BROTHERS ARCHITECTS OF AUSTIN DESIGNED THE TWO-STORY CHICAGO STYLE BUILDING OF BRICK, CUT STONE, PRISM GLASS CLERESTORY AND PLATE GLASS DISPLAY WINDOWS. MANAUTOU WAS A PROMINENT CITIZEN AND THE FIRST MEXICAN-AMERICAN TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE BROWNSVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK – 2012
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Enrique Manautou arrived from Mexico in 1902 and built a chain of dry goods stores across the Lower Rio Grande Valley as railroads and refugees from the Mexican Revolution swelled the region's trade. In 1928 he opened his namesake department store in Brownsville's Market Square, a two-story Chicago-style building of brick and cut stone with prism-glass clerestory and plate-glass display windows. Manautou went on to become the first Mexican-American president of the city's Chamber of Commerce.
Why it matters
The building testifies to the immigrant merchants who powered commerce along the border and to the rising civic leadership of Mexican Americans in early twentieth-century Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the opening decades of the twentieth century, the Lower Rio Grande Valley was booming. The arrival of the railroad connected this once-remote border country to the wider markets of the United States, and towns along the river swelled with new trade, new arrivals, and new money. Brownsville, sitting right on the Rio Grande across from Mexico, was a natural commercial hub for all of it.
Two great forces fed the growth. The railroad brought goods, farmers, and buyers into the Valley; and the upheaval of the Mexican Revolution sent refugees north across the border in large numbers. Together they created a surge of population and commerce that entrepreneurs were quick to serve.
This was also the age when American downtowns took on their modern commercial look — solid two-story business blocks with big display windows, built to show off goods and project permanence. Brownsville's Market Square district grew into exactly that kind of retail heart, and it was here that an ambitious merchant would plant his flagship store.
People & events
Enrique Manautou came to Texas from Mexico in 1902. He read the moment well: with the railroad boosting commerce and refugees from the Mexican Revolution swelling the region's population, the Valley was hungry for goods. Beginning in 1913, he built a string of dry goods stores across the Lower Rio Grande Valley, learning the retail trade town by town.
In the early 1920s he moved to Brownsville with his wife, Irene G. Manautou, setting his sights on the region's commercial center. In 1928 he opened the E. Manautou Department Store in the historic Market Square district — the culmination of a career built store by store from a single arrival two decades earlier.
He did not build modestly. He hired Page Brothers Architects of Austin to design a two-story Chicago-style building of brick and cut stone, finished with a prism-glass clerestory and plate-glass display windows. And Manautou's standing reached beyond his own storefront: he became a prominent citizen and the first Mexican-American to serve as president of the Brownsville Chamber of Commerce — a mark of both his success and his acceptance into the city's civic leadership.
Its place in the American story
The Manautou Building stands for a story that runs all along the southern border: the immigrant merchant as an engine of American commerce. Newcomers who arrived with little but ambition built the stores, supplied the goods, and served the growing populations of border towns, knitting the economies of two countries together in the process.
Its architecture places it firmly in the national mainstream. The Chicago-style commercial building — with its emphasis on large windows, natural light, and the display of merchandise — was the shape of the modern American shopping street, and prism glass was a clever, widely used device for pulling daylight deep into a store before electric lighting was universal. That a Brownsville merchant commissioned such a building shows how fully the border participated in national trends.
Manautou's election as the first Mexican-American president of the city's Chamber of Commerce points to something larger still: the rising civic and economic leadership of Mexican Americans in early twentieth-century Texas. The building is not just a store; it is evidence of a community claiming its place at the center of civic life.
If you visit
Look up and look through. The pleasures of this building are in its face: the two-story front of brick and cut stone, the plate-glass display windows meant to stop a passerby, and the band of prism glass — the clerestory — designed to flood the interior with daylight. Even a century on, it reads as a serious piece of commercial architecture.
Set it in its neighborhood. This is the historic Market Square district, the old retail heart of Brownsville, and the building was meant to hold its own among the city's finest storefronts. Standing in front of it, imagine the sidewalk crowds of the late 1920s and the windows dressed to draw them in.
Brownsville sits right on the border, so the Manautou Building fits naturally into a walk that takes in the city's downtown and its deep connections across the river. Let this stop stand for the immigrant merchants and Mexican-American civic leaders who shaped the place — a single handsome building that carries a much larger story about the border and its people.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Enrique Manautou
- · Irene G. Manautou
Related events
- · Mexican Revolution
Themes & tags
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