By Mary Belle Ingram
From the Matagorda County History & Genealogy page
Jules Carl Leffland (1854-1924) was a Danish immigrant who was trained in architecture at the University of Copenhagen and immigrated to Texas in 1886.
His first work involved moving homes from Indianola inland to Cuero after the devastating hurricane of 1886.
From an office in Victoria, Leffland designed and supervised the construction of hundreds of structures.
He designed churches, schools, banks, city halls, hotels and residences in an area from Wharton to Kingsville between 1888 and 1910 - 1917 were constructed in Matagorda County between 1900 and 1910.
The Hotel Blessing in Blessing and the Luther Hotel in Palacios are two Matagorda County places that are on the National Register of Historic Places.
Of the 17 Leffland structures, only eight remain; others were destroyed by hurricanes, fire or demolition.
An original blueprint of Hotel Blessing was found in the attic of the A.B. Pierce home with Jules Leffland’s signature on every page.
This discovery led to a visit to the Nave Museum in Victoria to view the Leffland exhibit with Gary Dunnam, Victoria Preservation Officer, as guide.
From that discovery - with Dunnam’s help and items from the Victoria exhibit - the Matagorda County Museum archives staff researched and found 16 photos of Leffland’s structures.
Leffland kept excellent records and one of his day books listed many plans by the number of structures that he designed and, in some instances, notes of fees and other information.
The Leffland’s work helps tell the history of small towns through photos of buildings that were built at the beginning of Bay City, Blessing and Palacios.
Blessing has two Leffland buildings over 100 years old—the Blessing Bank and Hotel Blessing.
In Palacios, only two Leffland buildings survive - the Luther Hotel and the Price-Farwell House.
Photos of those that did not survive include Palacios State Bank, the first Palacios Pavilion, the P. W. Elder house on South Bay Boulevard, Palacios College and the Grant Lumber Company (no photo is available for that building).
A note of interest discovered in the research was that Jules Leffland had a cottage on South Bay Boulevard when Palacios’ first pavilion was built in 1905-1906.
In Bay City, research showed that two churches were designed by Leffland, the First Baptist Church and the Episcopal church - both date back to 1903 and were destroyed in the hurricane of 1909.
A second structure by Leffland that was demolished in 1955 was the old Jeff Davis School on Fourth Street which was built in 1905.
Leffland buildings still standing are all on Seventh Street: the Masonic Lodge building, 1906; Bay City Bank, 1903; LeTulle Mercantile Company, 1901; and First National Bank Building, 1903 at 7th and Avenue H.
Shortly before his death at the age of 70, Leffland became a citizen of the United States. He died October 21, 1924, at his home in Victoria.