The Zaragoza Birthplace State Historic Site, located about two miles south of Goliad, marks the 1829 birthplace of Ignacio Zaragoza, the Mexican general whose forces defeated a French invasion at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, the origin of the Cinco de Mayo commemoration. The original adobe or stone home in which Zaragoza was born no longer stands; archaeological work in the early 1970s located its foundations, and a reconstructed three-room stone house was built on the site, completed in 1974 and opened to the public in 1976. In 1980 the state of Puebla, Mexico, presented Texas with a large bronze statue of Zaragoza, cast by a Mexican sculpting family, which now anchors the grounds as a binational monument. Rather than serving any ongoing domestic or civic function, the site today operates as a small state historic site and museum, with exhibits illustrating everyday life on the Mexican frontier of Coahuila y Texas in the early nineteenth century alongside displays on Zaragoza's military career and his enduring symbolic importance to both Mexican and Mexican American communities. It functions as a commemorative landmark and heritage-tourism stop near Presidio La Bahia, drawing visitors especially around the Cinco de Mayo holiday, and is maintained by the Texas Historical Commission as part of the state's network of historic sites interpreting Texas's Spanish and Mexican colonial heritage.