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Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast » South Texas » Laredo (Webb County) » San Agustín Plaza

San Agustín Plaza

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1767. Bounded by Flores and San Agustín aves. and Grant and Zaragoza sts.
  • (The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
  • (The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

At the heart of the Spanish colonial city, San Agustín Plaza is a public space in the Spanish-Mexican tradition. The plaza and its adjacent urban grid were laid out and recorded by the royal surveyors during their visit in 1767 in accordance with the Laws of the Indies. The rectangular plaza was an unpaved open space for public festivities and trade until it was landscaped in the 1890s. Benches, a statue to Mexican hero Ignacio Zaragoza, a streamlined neoclassical bandstand from 1934, and a lively pedestrian scene make this space, socially and architecturally, indistinguishable from those across the river in Mexico.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Republic of the Rio Grande Museum (Bártolo García House)
Benavides-Vidaurri House
San Agustín Catholic Cathedral
Casa Reyes Ortíz
Commercial Building (Laredo National Bank)

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "San Agustín Plaza", [Laredo, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-LA1.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 269-269.

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