Ashton Villa, at the corner of Broadway and 24th Street, is an 1859 Italianate mansion built for hardware merchant James Moreau Brown — one of the oldest surviving brick structures in Texas and the first to have been built on Broadway. It survived both the Civil War (as a Union headquarters) and the 1900 hurricane and has been restored as a house museum by the Galveston Historical Foundation.
The first floor is furnished with period antiques, and the story of the Brown family — particularly the eccentric daughter "Miss Bettie," who spent 60 years in the house and became a prominent socialite and artist — gives the place personality. The connection to Juneteenth, announced from the steps in 1865, is explained in good exhibits and makes Ashton Villa one of the most historically significant sites in Texas, though it is less visited than it deserves to be.