Refugio City Hall
Refugio, Refugio County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located on the city's original public square, this muncipal structure was erected in 1935-36 during the administration of Mayor Leonard Jeter. Designed by Irving H. Dunbar and built with financial assistance from the federal Public Works Administration, it was dedicated in a grand opening celebration on April 29, 1936. Exhibiting elements of the Spanish Colonial revival style, the building features a tile roof and arcaded front porch.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the Great Depression gripped Texas, Refugio built itself a new civic heart on its original public square, financed in part by the federal Public Works Administration and dedicated with a grand celebration in the spring of 1936. Its architect gave the little coastal town a touch of romance in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, with a red tile roof and an arcaded front porch that nodded to the region's mission-era past. The building rose during Mayor Leonard Jeter's administration as one of countless New Deal projects that put Americans to work.
Why it matters
City halls like this one are tangible reminders of how the New Deal reshaped small-town America, funding the public buildings that still anchor communities today.
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Related people
- · Leonard Jeter
- · Irving H. Dunbar
Related events
- · Public Works Administration
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Woodworth House
Refugio, TX
This galleried Victorian home was built for newspaperman L. H. Woodworth and his wife Mary Frances Power Swift, a granddaughter of empresario James Power, who founded Refugio. Designed by architect Julius Leffland, its first floor went up in 1900 and a second story followed in 1907, crowned by a distinctive central octagonal bay room. Passed down to the Woodworths' daughter, the house was carefully restored in 1974.
Refugio County Courthouses
Refugio, TX
Refugio takes its name from the Spanish mission Nuestra Señora del Refugio, founded here in 1795, whose building later served as an early courthouse for the new county. From a shell-concrete structure of about 1850 on the old Mexican-era plaza through fire and replacement, the county's seat of justice evolved until architect Atlee B. Ayres designed the fifth and grandest courthouse, completed in 1917. The oil and gas discoveries of the 1920s swelled the county and prompted the courthouse's mid-century expansion.
John Howland Wood and Nancy Clark Wood House
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A New Yorker trained in trade and painting, John Howland Wood crossed to Texas in 1836 in time to fight at San Jacinto, then settled as a quartermaster, merchant, and cattleman. With his wife Nancy he built a mercantile empire and vast landholdings on the coast, naming their ranch 'Bonnie View.' After lightning destroyed their first house, they raised this 1875 mansion on its foundations — a Greek Revival plan dressed in exuberant Italianate detail, complete with a widow's walk recalling Wood's native New York.
Mills Wharf
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Built by John Howard Mills in 1932, Mills Wharf became a celebrated hub for waterfowl hunting and coastal fishing, its cottages, cook house, store, and tackle shop drawing sportsmen for nearly three decades. A quirky wildlife museum starred a duck with an oyster permanently clamped to its foot, famous enough for "Ripley's Believe It or Not." The new "Hug the Coast" Highway 35 made the wharf easy to reach, and after Herbert and Harry Mills bought it in 1946 they even added a seaplane service to ferry anglers to remote fishing spots.