Ashton Villa
a.k.a. El Mina Shrine Temple;Brown,J.M.,House
2328 Broadway, Galveston, TXAshton Villa, the Colonel J. M. Brown House, was built in 1858. Brown, born in New York City in 1821, had been a canal-boat worker on the Erie Canal, and a master bricklayer before arriving in Galveston in 1842 or 1843. In Galveston, Brown was engaged in the hardware business and attained great wealth. During the Civil War, the prominent Galvestonian was also president of the Galveston, Houston, and Henderson Railway and Purchasing Agent in Mexico for the Confederate States. Later he was instrumental in the formation of the First National Bank of Galveston and was its president for some years.
The Brown House was the headquarters for the Confederate Army and later the Union Army after the battle of Galveston Bay. In 1967 the Texas State Historical Survey Committee designated it a historic landmark.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1969.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.