HABS-Herrera-Ruiz House

Historic American Buildings Survey

Herrera Ruiz House (Blas Herrera House) 

The Blas Herrera House has a dual significance. First, the structure itself is a rare surviving example of a nineteenth-century building type called a jacal, a type of vernacular construction found in the American southwest and northern Mexico. Jacales such as this one were constructed of local materials by persons of Spanish and Mexican heritage to serve as homes in towns and on ranches from the early eighteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth century. Only five such jacales remain in Bexar County, Texas. Secondly, the home and surrounding site are associated with members of the Ruiz and Herrera families, both important in the region’s history and development. Not only did they play an important part in the political leadership of the region (e.g., they were municipal office holders and took part in two wars of independence), but also they were part of the Tejano ranching communities that settled and populated areas of Texas in the nineteenth century. Blas Herrera, one of the most notable residents of the house, is attributed with alerting the defenders of the Alamo of the approaching Mexican army, earning him the nickname “the Paul Revere of the Texas Revolution.” Read more.