| Marker Text |
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 |
