Texas, Brewster County, Alpine
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Frame and adobe. Built facing old cattle loading pens on the Southern Pacific Railway.
Lodgings and saloon for cowhands and ranchers in town to ship cattle from widely scattered ranches of the Big Bend country.
Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965
(Notable Buildings) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
Frame and adobe. Built facing old cattle loading pens on the Southern Pacific Railway.Lodgings and saloon for cowhands and ranchers in town to ship cattle from widely scattered ranches of the Big Bend country.
Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965
(Notable Buildings) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
(obverse)
Built in 1890 by Trinidad Garcia, ranch hand. Original four rooms had adobe walls 27 to 33 inches thick. Was a social center for many years. Since 1926, home of Thomas Valadez, a leading local merchant, and family. House now has eight rooms.
Site of the first Roman Catholic Church in Alpine. Deeded to the Diocese of San Antonio in 1896 by father and son Daniel and Thomas O. Murphy. The original adobe church building was dedicated November 19, 1902, by the Rev. A.J. Forest, Bishop of San Antonio, attended by Father Nicholas Brocardus, pastor of the Alpine parish, and assisted by Father Joseph Hoban of Ft. Davis. In 1914, the church became part of the newly established Diocese of El Paso. Father Manuel Cuadrado was assigned as the first resident priest in 1916. In 1917, the name was changed to Our Lady of Peace. After the new rock church was constructed in 1943, the original adobe church building was used as the Parish Hall until 1963, when it was razed and replaced with the current Parish hall building dedicated on July 15, 1964.
The present church building was dedicated on January 6, 1943, by Rev. Sidney M. Metzger, Bishop of El Paso. Construction began in 1941 under Father Francis Juaniz with members of the parish donating over $10,000. Contributions by the Catholic Extension Society contributed to the success of the project. D.E. Bond, a contractor from Pecos, Texas, built the church using local labor and native stone. Members of the parish brought seashells, fossils, and decorative stone which were placed in the church façade. In November, 2002, the parish celebrated its centennial anniversary.
Platted 1836 by surveyors Gail Borden, Jr., and Moses Lapham as "Congress Square." It was intention of city fathers Augustus C. and John K. Allen to have permanent Capitol of Republic of Texas located here. However, this was never realized and almost immediately it became center of commerce for the flourishing city.
At first called "Devil's Rope" by cowboys, barbed wire was patented in 1873 but found little favor with Texas cattlemen until the late 1870s, when its use and practicality were shown in a sensational demonstration here in San Antonio. Its showman-sponsor was John Warne Gates (1855-1911), who came here as agent for a pioneer wire manufacturer.
This courthouse occupies the south side of Main Plaza, formerly called "La Plaza de las Islas", as originally laid out by the Canary Islanders in 1731. As it was then, this plaza is the administrative and judicial heart of Bexar County.
Built about 1890, this home was constructed on land bordering the Mission Concepcion Acequia (Canal). In 1896 the site was purchased by Prussian native William Ernst (1830-1904), a former mail carrier between Fredericksburg and San Antonio. Ernst acquired a reputation as a talented cook, and while in Mexico during the U.S. Civil War, he prepared a supper for Emperor Maximilian. His Culinary skills earned him an appointment to the Emperor's staff as a chef. After Maximilian's execution in 1867, Ernst returned to San Antonio, where he operated a restaurant on Alamo Plaza.
This tower and two others supported a cable conveyor that brought clay from pits south of the Colorado river to a brick making facility nearby. A. J. Zilker installed the system in 1902. In 1912, the Butler Brick Company leased his plant, operating the tower system until 1942.
As the granddaughter of Lorenzo de Zavala (1789-1836), first vice-president of the Republic of Texas, young Adina de Zavala was exposed to vivid accounts of Texas' revolutionary and republican past. She became a guiding force in the preservation of many of Texas' most revered historic structures and sites, including the Alamo, Mission San Francisco de Los Tejas in East Texas, and San Antonio's Spanish Governor's Palace. The "De Zavala Daughters," a women's group formed in Miss Adina in 1889, erected Texas' first historical markers and helped preserve San Antonio's Spanish missions.
Grave of George Nicholas
In Respectful Memory
