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BestsellerE-book
Author George, W. Eugene, 1922-2013, author.

Title Master Builder of the Lower Rio Grande : Heinrich Portscheller / W. Eugene George ; compiled and edited by Mary Carolyn Hollers George ; foreword by Maria Eugenia Guerra ; afterword by Stephen Fox.

Publication Info. College Station : Texas A&M University Press, [2016]

Item Status

Edition First edition.
Description 1 online resource (pages cm.)
text file
Series Sara and John Lindsey series in the arts and humanities
Sara and John Lindsey series in the arts and humanities.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Preface: The quest for Heinrich Portscheller -- The beginning -- The life and times of Heinrich Portscheller -- Roma and Rio Grande City in Starr County, Texas -- The legacy of Heinrich Portscheller -- Interventions -- Afterword: The historical context of Heinrich Portscheller's career on the lower Rio Grande / Stephen Fox.
Summary "In 1865, Heinrich Portscheller immigrated to Mexico from his native Germany, perhaps motivated by a desire to avoid compulsory military service in the Austro-Prussian War. The scion of a well-known family of masons and master builders, he had the misfortune to disembark at Veracruz during the Franco-Mexican War. Portscheller and his traveling companion were impressed into the imperialist forces and sent to northern Mexico. Sometime following the Battle of Santa Gertrudis in1866, Portscheller deserted the army and eventually made a place for himself in Roma, a small town in Starr County, Texas. Over the next decades, Portscheller acquired a reputation as a master builder and architect. He brought to the lower Rio Grande Valley his long heritage of Old World building knowledge and skills and integrated them with the practices of local Mexican construction and vernacular architecture. However, despite his many contributions to the distinctive architecture of Roma and surrounding places, by the mid-twentieth century he was largely forgotten. During nearly fifty years of historical sleuthing in South Texas and Germany, W. Eugene George reconstructed many of the details of the life and career of this important South Texas craftsman. Containing editorial contributions by Mary Carolyn Hollers George and featuring a foreword by Maria Eugenia Guerra and a concluding assessment by noted architectural historian Stephen Fox, Master Builder of the Lower Rio Grande: Heinrich Portscheller at last permits a long-overdue appreciation of the legacy of this influential architect and builder of the Texas-Mexico borderlands."--Provided by publisher.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Portscheller, Heinrich, 1843-1915.
Portscheller, Heinrich, 1843-1915.
Architecture -- Mexican-American Border Region -- History.
Architecture.
History.
Architecture -- Texas, South -- History.
South Texas.
German American architects -- Texas -- Biography.
German American architects.
Texas.
Genre/Form Biographies.
Electronic books.
History.
Biographies.
Added Author George, Mary Carolyn Hollers, editor.
ISBN 1623494524
9781623494520
1623494532
9781623494537 (electronic book)