{"nrhp_refnum":"10000143","name":"Brownsville City Cemetery and Hebrew Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"Bound by E. 5th St., Madison St., E 2nd St., and Town Resaca","address_restricted":false,"city":"Brownsville","county":"Cameron County","state":"TX","lat":25.909527000000026,"lon":-97.50069899999994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2010-03-31","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Landscape Architecture","Art","Community Planning and Development"],"significance_levels":["state","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Two adjoining cemeteries in Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas: the Brownsville City Cemetery and the Hebrew Cemetery, occupying three blocks beside Town Resaca and enclosed by a whitewashed brick wall built largely around 1868-1869.","why_significant":"The cemeteries reflect the changing physical and social structure of a U.S./Mexico border city in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including its ethnic, religious and fraternal groups. Their brick vaults, monuments and plot layouts show Creole-Mexican and New Orleans influences, and they hold the graves of many community leaders. They are significant under Criteria A and C at the state level.","narrative":"Brownsville's City Cemetery and the adjoining Hebrew Cemetery occupy three blocks on a flat, lightly wooded shelf that slopes toward Town Resaca. A whitewashed brick wall encloses the grounds, with gates on East Fifth and East Madison Streets. The City Cemetery is known for whitewashed brick vaults with molded bands and pedimented fronts, a form shared with cemeteries in Matamoros and New Orleans. Later elite families favored granite and marble obelisks, crosses and statues, often set within iron-fenced plots. The grounds are divided among Catholic, Masonic, Odd Fellows, mutual-aid society and potter's field sections, showing the town's social makeup. The Hebrew Cemetery, about a quarter acre, has low gray granite markers and no above-ground crypts. City records trace the move from the older burial ground to this site between 1850 and 1870, with the wall completed in 1869. The cemeteries were listed for their landscape, funerary art and role in the city's development from 1851 to 1960.","period_of_significance":"1851-1960","architect_builder":"Portscheller, Heinrich (attributed); unknown","architectural_style":"Other: Cemetery","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Still in use as cemeteries; the form describes both as retaining a high degree of integrity, with recent interments having minimal effect on their design.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:23.269483-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/77/9714/40971477/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/10000143.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40971477","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q109999832"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/cameron-county/brownsville-city-cemetery-and-hebrew-cemetery-10000143/"}