DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, this story starts with a man and a building, and if you ask me, that's just about the best kind of story there is. His name was Juan Bautista Barberá, a native of Spain who made his way to the United States in 1905.
Now, we don't know exactly what roads he traveled to get to Mission, Texas, but what we do know is that by about 1912, this man — a bricklayer by profession, mind you — had built himself a theatre. Not a little back-room affair. A full cultural arts center.
He called it Teatro La Paz. The Peace Theatre. And right there in Mission, Hidalgo County, Texas, peace had a home address and a marquee.
Barberá wasn't just renting out the space and collecting a check, either. He was bringin' in films, lecturers, actors, musicians — the whole sweep of the arts, right there under one roof that his own hands had helped build. A man who lays brick for a living and then fills what he built with music and light — that's a particular kind of dreamer the world doesn't always make room for, but Mission did.
Decades passed. The theatre stood. Then in 1945, a man named Enrique Flores bought the property and the business, and with new ownership came a new name.
The Teatro La Paz became the Río Theatre — and that name stuck. What didn't change was the purpose. That vernacular commercial structure, as the record calls it, kept right on being a center for cultural events in Mission.
Peace Theatre, Río Theatre — different names, same heartbeat. Some buildings just have that in them.
What the marker says
First known as Teatro La Paz (Peace Theatre), this cultural arts center was built about 1912 by Juan Bautista Barberá, a native of Spain who came to the United States in 1905. A bricklayer by profession, Barberá brought films, lecturers, actors, and musicians to his theatre. Enrique Flores bought the property and business in 1945 and changed its name to the Río Theatre. The vernacular commercial structure continues to be a center for cultural events in Mission. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982