Old Garza Home
Hebbronville, Jim Hogg County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Don Bonifacio Garza traveled extensively in the late 1800s along the historic oxcart road from San Diego to Peña station (1 mi. E), then to Rio Grande City, Roma, and Mier. He traded and sold American and Mexican goods and carried news to American Tejano ranches of Spanish and Mexican land grant ancestry. In 1893, Garza built this house, which was also Hebbronville's post office for a few years. Don Bonifacio distributed water and sold bloques de sillar (limestone blocks) in mule-drawn carts. His poetic greetings were legendary. The house is also known as Casa de Quatro Aguas,” (Caidas), or “House of Four Waterfalls” for its steeply pitched roof. In 1898, Don Bonifacio Garza sold the house to José Angel Garza (no relation), a Hebbronville pioneer and entrepreneur. The house is sited within the original townsite of Hebbronville platted in 1894. This has been home to several descendants of Spanish pioneer families. The house also provided sanctuary for nuns exiled during the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s, as well as nuns displaced during Mexico's Cristero War of the 1920s. The home often housed professors of El Colegio Altamirano (1898-1958), a nearby Spanish-language school for grades one through six; Profesora Emilia Davila was the last occupant. The two-story modified rectangular plan dwelling features a rare Austrian-style gable-on-hip roof with dormers. Thick limestone blocks combined with a caliche and stucco exterior to help regulate the interior temperature year-round. Earlier thatch and wooden shingle roofs caught fire at least five times before metal roof was installed. Today the oldest house in Hebronville is a model of craftsmanship and a powerful connection entwined in Tejano history and Texas’ Western past. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 1962
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Don Bonifacio Garza worked the historic oxcart road across South Texas in the late 1800s, trading American and Mexican goods and carrying news to the Tejano ranches of old Spanish and Mexican land-grant families. In 1893 he built this limestone house — briefly Hebbronville's post office — whose steep Austrian-style roof earned it the name Casa de Cuatro Aguas. Over the decades it sheltered nuns exiled by the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War and housed teachers of the nearby Spanish-language Colegio Altamirano.
Why it matters
As the oldest house in Hebbronville, it stands as a monument to Tejano heritage, binding South Texas ranching life to the wider currents of Mexican history just across the border.
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Related people
- · Don Bonifacio Garza
- · José Angel Garza
- · Emilia Davila
Themes & tags
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