Nahor Biggs Yard

Yard arrived in Galveston in January 1838 as a tailor and found other trades. He ran the men's clothing firm of Briggs and Yard from 1845 until his partner died when the steamer Varuna sank off Florida in 1870, and he presided over the Galveston Gas Company from 1855 to 1879. He helped incorporate the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway in 1873. The Handbook says he brought the first lawsuit in Galveston, was foreman of its first jury, and helped organize Hook and Ladder Company No. 1, the first fire company in Texas.

What the plaque says

Nahor Biggs Yard In 1838 New Jersey native Nahor Biggs Yard arrived in the new town of Galveston and built one of the city's first residences. Yard enjoyed success in business but is best remembered for his distinguished civic and military career. He served as city alderman, county commissioner, church and Masonic leader, colonel in the first regiment of Texas troops, school board member, and president of the Howard Association, a local philanthropic organization. Recorded - 1993

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Moody Mansion — 1.1 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 1.3 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• The Strand — 1.5 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• Galveston Seawall and the 1900 Storm — 1.5 mi
  The concrete wall along the Gulf that Galveston built after the hurricane of September 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in a city of 38,000.

More markers nearby

• Nicholas D. Labadie — steps away
• Bernard Moore Temple — steps away
• Warren D. C. Hall — steps away
• Lt. Commander Edward Lea — steps away