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Brothers Miguel Fernandez (1839-1905) and José Fernandez-Toral (1837-1911) immigrated to Brownsville from Asturias, Spain, and partnered in an import-export business. After their partnership dissolved, Miguel opened a hide yard at this location in 1890, one of the first in the city. It came at a time of drought, when a shrinking market for live cattle forced many ranchers to slaughter their herds. Hide yards and related facilities would render tallow; bleach bones, horns and hooves; and dry and bale hides for later shipment to distant markets. Hide yards also stocked dry goods, hardware and other ranch supplies.
The Miguel Fernandez Hide Yard is a one-story commercial building with an L-shaped floor plan, built in two stages in Border Brick style. The building has interior brick pier and arch wall system with iron tie bars that supports the wood roof joists and reinforces the exterior load-bearing brick walls. The exterior four-course walls are more than one foot thick. The original portion of the building, facing East 11th Street, was built about 1890. Pilasters at the corners define the continuous 100-foot bay, with ten evenly spaced double wood doors with transoms and segmental arches along the facade. A projecting brick entablature with molded brick cornice rests on a dentil course. The second section of the building, facing East Adams Street, was built about 1900 with similar materials and details, with a central brick pilaster evenly dividing eight doorways along a 100-foot facade.
After his father's death, Miguel Fernandez Jr. continued operating the family business and was a banker, cotton gin operator, landowner and developer. The property remained in the family until 1984 and has since housed a variety of businesses. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2021 |
