Home of Charles Stillman, 1810-1875

The infant born in this house in 1850 grew into one of the most powerful bankers in America, and much of his reach ran back through Texas. James Stillman took over his father's holdings in 1872 and made them the controlling interest in New York's National City Bank. In Texas he held the bonds of sixteen banks and land companies in the lower Rio Grande valley, and sat with three other financiers who controlled most Texas railroads, among them the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico. He also backed Porfirio Díaz's 1876 revolution, which was conducted from Brownsville.

What the plaque says

Home of Charles Stillman, 1810-1875 Brownsville home of Charles Stillman, 1810-1875; founder of Brownsville and partner in firm of M. Kenedy and Company, which opened the Rio Grande to steamboat navigation and controlled much of the commerce of Northern Mexico, 1848-1868. This house, erected about 1850, was the birthplace of James Stillman, President of the National City Bank of New York, 1891-1909.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stillman House Museum — steps away
  The 1850 Greek Revival house of Charles Stillman, who laid out Brownsville in 1848 beside the army's Fort Brown, and for a century the home of the Treviño family.
• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 7.2 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.
• Port Isabel Lighthouse State Historic Site — 22 mi
  A 72-foot brick tower finished in 1852 for the Brazos Santiago shipping lane, dark from 1905 until a reproduction lens was lit in 2022, and the only Texas lighthouse open to the public.
• Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  A coastal refuge set up in 1946 for wintering redhead ducks, with 417 bird species recorded and, by the Fish and Wildlife Service's account, the largest ocelot population in the United States.

More markers nearby

• Bagdad-Matamoros, C.S.A. — steps away
• Fort Brown — steps away
• Cameron County — 0.2 mi
• Fort Brown Reservation — 0.3 mi