Quinta Mazatlan_Home of Jason Matthews

After Marcia and Jason Matthews died in 1963 and 1964, the house went up for sale. Hurricane Beulah stripped most of its roof in 1967. Frank and Marilyn Schultz bought the estate in 1968, repaired and enlarged the house, and let the native thornforest grow back around it. The City of McAllen won the property at auction in 1998, which kept it from developers, and the grounds opened to visitors in 2006. A cottage built before the mansion faces it across a courtyard.

What the plaque says

Quinta Mazatlan_Home of Jason Matthews One of the larger adobe homes in the state, Quinta Mazatlan was designed and built by Jason Chilton Matthews (1887-1964) during the late 1930s. Adobe blocks used in construction were made at this site. A composer, writer, and adventurer, Matthews was known for his eccentric ways. During the last few years of their lives, Jason and his wife Marcia (1891-1963) edited and published the "American Mercury" magazine from here. Begun in 1924, the magazine was a leading conservative publication which expressed strong pro-American views. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• La Lomita Chapel — 6.3 mi
  A small sandstone chapel on the Rio Grande levee, built by Oblate missionaries in 1865 and rebuilt at this site in 1899, the landmark that gave the city of Mission its name.
• Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — 8.8 mi
  About 2,000 acres of river forest on the Rio Grande's north bank, the surviving part of Benigno Leal's 1834 land grant, kept as a refuge since 1943 where two bird migration routes meet.
• Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park — 9.4 mi
  A 587-acre stand of Rio Grande woodland near Mission, once part of a Spanish porción, given to the state by the Bentsen family in 1944 and now headquarters of the World Birding Center.
• Museum of South Texas History — 9.7 mi
  Edinburg's regional museum, begun in 1967 in the 1910 Hidalgo County jail and now telling the Rio Grande's story from fossils and native peoples through steamboats to the 20th century.

More markers nearby

• Floyd H. (Slats) Rodgers — 0.6 mi
• Bethel Baptist Church — 1.2 mi
• Campsite of the "Fighting 69th" — 1.9 mi
• Archer Park — 1.9 mi