Adina De Zavala Advocacy Award
MARGARET DOUGHTY & EDITH GOWER
Palacios, Texas
2025
The Adina De Zavala Advocacy Award is named in honor of one of Texas’s most influential preservation advocates. Born in 1861, Adina De Zavala devoted her life to teaching about and protecting Texas’s heritage. Her visionary leadership and advocacy helped preserve the Alamo among other iconic Texas sites. This award recognizes that same courage and persistence, honoring Texans who have led a focused, strategic, and inspiring preservation advocacy effort within the past three years.
In 2025, the Adina De Zavala Advocacy Award is presented to Margaret Doughty and Edith Gower of Palacios for their extraordinary leadership in saving one of the Texas Gulf Coast’s most iconic landmarks, the Luther Hotel.
Built in 1903 and designed by Danish-born architect Jules Leffland, the Luther Hotel is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For over a century, the hotel has been the social and cultural heart of the community, anchoring the town along Tres Palacios Bay.
However, in 2020, following the passing of longtime owner Jack Findley, the Luther Hotel’s future became uncertain. In 2022, a quiet agreement was made to sell the property to a charitable foundation that intended to redevelop the site as an oyster hatchery—on the condition that the historic hotel be demolished before the sale could proceed. That November, Preservation Texas broke the news about the Foundation’s previously undisclosed plans, adding the Luther Hotel to our annual Most Endangered Places List and naming it the “most endangered building in Texas”.
That’s when Margaret Doughty and Edith Gower stepped in. They knew that losing the Luther Hotel would mean erasing a vital piece of Palacios’s history. So they protested, created a petition, researched, wrote letters, made calls, hosted meetings, organized volunteer clean-ups, and brought the community together. In the process they established the Palacios Preservation Association.
The “Save the Luther” campaign quickly expanded into a larger movement supported by a team of volunteer lawyers and preservationists from across the country. With their help, the demolition was postponed one temporary restraining order at a time. And eventually, the Foundation was persuaded to pull out of the sale.
In August of 2024, came the unbelievable outcome of Margaret and Edith’s perseverance: Houston businessman and philanthropist J. P. Bryan purchased the Luther Hotel with the intention to rehabilitate and reopen it — ensuring that this beloved landmark will continue to welcome visitors for generations to come. The story of the Luther Hotel is more than just a preservation victory. It’s a reminder of what determined individuals can achieve when they refuse to accept that demolition is inevitable. Margaret and Edith showed what Adina De Zavala herself embodied — that advocacy can truly change the course of history.
The award was presented at Preservation Texas’s 2025 Honor Award Ceremony in San Antonio on October 30, 2025.
