By Rob McCorkle

SAN ANTONIO -- In Texas' top tourist destination, three white limestone and adobe structures tucked amid parking lots and modern office buildings command little attention in bustling San Antonio, a city known for the Alamo, River Walk, Spanish missions, and popular theme parks. Nearby, a life-sized bronze statue of Casa Navarro State Historic Site's namesake keeps watch on the 19th century landmark, leaning on a cane, with the left hand outstretched palm-up, gesturing toward the former residence of one of Texas' more remarkable but unsung heroes.
The name José Antonio Navarro has been mostly lost among those of such early-day Texas icons as Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin and Davy Crockett in the state's colorful lore. History reveals that Navarro had the "misfortune" of dying of natural causes at the age of 76 rather than in some renowned battle.
"If Navarro had died in the battle of the Alamo, that would have raised his profile," chuckled David McDonald, who before taking over management of the state site was mostly unfamiliar with the Tejano statesman. What scant recognition Navarro has achieved in the passage 130 years stems from his being one of two native Tejanos who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence.
McDonald, who has a Spanish literature degree, left a job at Mission San Jose in 1978 to manage Casa Navarro, which in 1960 had been saved from demolition by the San Antonio Conservation Society. He has spent the past 23 years at what he calls a "research goldmine" seeking clues to what kind of man Navarro really was and his role in Texas' tumultuous birth. He's gleaned a myriad of details from Navarro's correspondence, census reports, tax records, and other historical documents discovered in government archives in San Antonio, Saltillo, Mexico, and elsewhere.
"It became clear to me," McDonald said, "that Navarro represents something unique to our department [Texas Parks and Wildlife] and San Antonio. You see an overall picture of Texas through Navarro's life and deeds. He was a comprehensive figure during the formative period of Texas history when the destiny of Texas was shaped."
Navarro lived from 1795 to 1871, a period that saw a number of governments come and go in what would become Texas. During that time, Navarro served in the state legislature under Mexico, the Republic of Texas, and the U.S., and held local government positions. He was appointed by fellow Tejanos to serve on committees that wrote the first two Texas Constitutions, in 1836 and 1845.
But Navarro gained his greatest accolade while working on the 1845 Constitution. The usually mild-mannered statesman took issue with a proposed amendment that would require citizens to be white to vote, deriding the measure as objectionable and obnoxious, according to McDonald.
A decade later, Navarro's legend grew when he became the first Mexican-American to write about the history of Texas from a Mexican perspective. Enraged by local newspaper articles attacking his people, Navarro took pen in hand to write eloquently about sacrifices of Tejanos who fought to win Mexico's independence from Spain. He was lauded as the "strongest defender of the rights of his people in the United States."
Nonetheless, Navarro has been falsely maligned in some quarters as a turncoat who against the wishes of his people rode off to Washington-on-the-Brazos to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence. Not so, McDonald asserted. He came across an 1830 manuscript detailing a gathering of Tejanos who met to elect two delegates to the convention. Navarro was one of the two chosen.
Moreover, McDonald said he has found evidence that Navarro was a prominent civic leader of San Antonio's Laredito -- the area west of San Pedro Creek on the road to Laredo heavily populated by Mexicans that in the mid-1800s played a major role in helping preserve and reinforce the cultural heritage of the Tejano people (Texans of Mexican descent). It was there in Navarro's times that the roots of Mexican culture -- Spanish language, special ethnic foods, music, theater, and religious festivals -- took hold and grew. True to that Mexican heritage, Navarro spoke only Spanish.
To show Casa Navarro's esteemed role in furthering the Mexican culture, McDonald occasionally holds folkways demonstrations for school groups and others beneath a grape arbor in the courtyard of the Navarro home site that covers a little less than an acre two blocks southeast of Market Square. Park visitors learn how long-ago Texans used a metate to grind corn for the masa used to make tamales and tortillas, and how to make adobe bricks using dirt and lime.
Over the years, McDonald and park staff have worked to bring Navarro and his family to life through interpretive tours that include reproductions of historical documents, period maps, paintings of the town of Bexar (present-day San Antonio), and family photographs. For visual impact, McDonald has placed about the buildings poster-sized photocopies of a number of historical documents, including a 1779 census of the population of Bexar. Clearly visible is the scrawled name of Navarro's father Angel.
Visitors receive an orientation about Navarro and his role in Texas history, and are given guided tours of two of three original structures built for Navarro in the 1840s and 1850s. Tours fees are $2 for adults, $1 for children six to 12, and free for those under six.
On display in the two-room, 1856 Navarro home are photos of the patriarch, his wife Marguerite, and their six children, including Angel, who went on to attend Harvard law school. Here, too, is a map of Navarro's extensive land holdings totaling 50,000 acres of ranch land acquired from profits from his thriving mercantile business and a letter written by the self-educated merchant.
An adjacent three-room structure believed by McDonald to contain the original town home built for Navarro (circa 1840) contains more than a dozen exhibits detailing Navarro's imprisonment in Mexico, an 1832 deed to the property, his legislative career, landholdings, reputation as a nationalist and patriot, and more.
Casa Navarro State Historic Site is one of more than 120 state parks in the Texas State Park System. The park, open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, is at the corner of South Laredo and West Nueva streets. For more information about Casa Navarro, call (512) 226-4801. To learn about all of the Texas state parks, call (800) 792-1112, or log onto www.tpwd.state.tx.us.