Manuel Texada probably started building his two-story house in 1798, the year he acquired the property. A newspaper article identified it as the city’s first brick building, and numerous articles and advertisements dating from 1800 document its use as both commercial rental and family residence. Texada’s tenants included a tailor, dancing academy, and tavern, and the house hosted exhibitions of a profile artist, wax museum, and “living elephant.” Texada had the city’s highest tax evaluation in 1805. The building’s two public sides are laid in Flemish bond. Inside, the first-story former commercial space features exposed beaded beams and a beaded-board ceiling, but the upper residential story is more finely finished with plastered ceilings and a dentiled cornice.
Texada served as the first state capitol building from 1817 to 1820, when Natchez was Mississippi’s capital. In the mid-1830s, it became a duplex, and by 1964, it was a deteriorated tenement before being restored by George and Margaret Moss. Original outbuildings include the two-story brick kitchen with upper-story slave quarters and probably the state’s oldest slave quarters, a frame two-story building, built c. 1800, facing Washington Street.