St. Mary's Catholic Church
Victoria, Victoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Present church built 1903-1904. Third building used by this congregation as a church since the colonization of Victoria in 1824 by Don Martin de Leon. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Victoria's Catholic roots reach back to 1824, when Don Martín de León founded the colony on the Guadalupe River — the only largely Mexican empresario colony in Texas. This parish has worshipped through three church buildings since then, the present one raised in 1903–1904. It stands as a link between Spanish-Mexican Texas and the modern city.
Why it matters
St. Mary's carries the continuous thread of Tejano Catholic life from Mexican colonization into twentieth-century Texas.
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Related people
- · Martín de León
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Home of Empresario Martin De Leon
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.
Fossati's Delicatessen
Victoria, TX
Italian immigrant Frank Fossati opened his first Victoria delicatessen in 1882 and moved it into this purpose-built brick storefront in 1895. Handling imported foods, groceries, and feed, it became a beloved gathering place—and one of the oldest surviving commercial buildings in the city, complete with double front doors and multi-light transoms.
This Marker Faces the Site_Home of John Joseph Linn
Victoria, TX
Irish-born John Joseph Linn came to Texas as a merchant and became the last alcalde and first mayor of Victoria, serving in the Provisional Government of 1835 and the first Congress of the Republic. His home was a waypoint of the Texas Revolution: volunteers of the New Orleans Greys and the Alabama Red Rovers were welcomed there on their way to join Fannin's doomed command at Goliad, and Victoria's women molded bullets for the army nearby. Linn died on the site in 1885.
Regan House
Victoria, TX
Irish immigrant Dominick Regan came to Texas, served as a Union soldier in the Civil War, and built a chain of general stores along the coast while raising thirteen children with his wife Mary. He had this Italianate home built in Indianola in 1883, then moved and rebuilt it in Victoria under architect Jules Leffland after hurricanes wrecked the port city.