Jarvis Plaza

Jarvis named Laredo's streets as a map of two countries. As county surveyor after the Civil War, the New York-born veteran alternated heroes of the United States and Mexico, and he gave other streets the names of founding families such as Vidaurri, Benavides and García. His secretary named Santa Maria and Santa Clotilde for Jarvis's daughters. As mayor in 1868 he passed ordinances to curb violence in the streets and opened a new cemetery. A Republican in a Democratic town, he ran again in November 1872 and lost to Agustín Salinas.

What the plaque says

Jarvis Plaza New York native Samuel Matthias Jarvis (1822-1893) received an engineering degree from Columbia University and joined General Zachary Taylor's army when the United States declared war against Mexico. After the war Jarvis worked in Vallecillo, Nuevo Leon, where he married Inocencia Flores. Their family settled in Laredo following the Civil War. Jarvis held several public offices in both Laredo and Webb County including county surveyor. He was responsible for surveying streets and parks in the city, and produced a map of Laredo that was officially adopted by the City Council in 1869. He expanded the traditional Spanish town plan laid out in 1767 by Juan Fernando de Palacios. Jarvis served as mayor of Laredo from 1868-72. He donated land for this plaza and it was referred to as Jarvis Plaza as early as 1881. The plaza was the center of a second business district and the Post Office/Customs house, and nearby hotels were constructed in the early 1900s. Jarvis was instrumental in the development of Laredo and Webb County, spurred by the arrival of the railroads in the 1880s. The plaza continues to serve the citizens of Laredo as it has for more than a century. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Agustín Plaza — 0.3 mi
  The shaded square at the center of Laredo's 1755 town, where Carrizo families, Spanish ranchers and a century of border politics shared the same ground.
• San Agustín Cathedral — 0.3 mi
  Laredo's Gothic Revival parish church, finished in 1872 on a parish older than Texas statehood, and the mother church of the Diocese of Laredo since 2000.
• Republic of the Rio Grande Museum — 0.3 mi
  A stone-and-adobe Laredo house, by tradition the capitol of a federalist republic that lasted ten months in 1840, now a museum of life in a mid-nineteenth-century home.
• Fort McIntosh Historic District at Laredo College — 0.8 mi
  An 1849 Army post on the Rio Grande above Laredo, its barracks, officers' quarters and 1895 chapel still standing on a college campus that took over the site in 1947.

More markers nearby

• Saint Peter the Apostle Catholic Church — steps away
• El Primer Congreso Mexicanista — steps away
• Laredo's Washington's Birthday Celebration — steps away
• City Hall and Market House — 0.2 mi