For eighty-eight years, the William Cameron House stood as a nineteenth-century architectural treasure near the intersection of Austin Avenue and Thirteenth Street. The fine embellishments on the mansion dazzled Waco residents and helped it to become a familiar and revered residential landmark of the city.
Born in Scotland on January 11, 1834, William Cameron moved to the United States in 1852 and worked as a construction foreman for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Cameron enlisted for the Union Army during the Civil War and was captured at the Battle of Springfield in 1861. After his release, Cameron worked in Missouri to supply grain for the government. While in Missouri, Cameron married Letitia Stewart and had two children. In 1865, Cameron began work for the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad and soon built retail lumberyards along the rail lines toward the Southwest and continued accumulating wealth. Cameron’s first wife died very early in life, and Cameron then married Flora Ann Berry of Little Rock, Arkansas. He became the father of three more children and provided generously to them all. The family moved to Waco, Texas, in 1876, where Cameron opened an additional lumberyard and headquarters for the William Cameron Company. He also got involved in the grain and flour mill business, and was a director at the First National Bank of Waco.
While residing in Waco, Cameron built a mansion for his wife Flora and their three children. The house was completed in 1885 as a surprise for his wife. The designer of the sophisticated structure architect was William Winant Larmour, the same man who designed the construction on Baylor University’s Old Main and Burleson Halls. The house was beautifully decorated with white architectural millwork and ironwork and boasted a French blue background. Highlights of the mansion included windows made of heavy crystal glass, massive mahogany stairs that complimented the parquet flooring, and a roof topped with an iron-crowned cupola. The plentiful space served as a home for Cameron, his family and in-laws, and provided space for domestic employees.
After the death of Cameron in 1899, the house was passed down to his son, William Waldo Cameron, and then to his grandson, Edward Cameron Bolton, who saw the home fit for demolition. Coca-Cola Bottling Company bought the home and made plans to clear the property. Many citizens of Waco were disappointed; however, historic preservation was out of the question due to the condition of the house, its immense size, and the level of upkeep required. In 1966, a young entrepreneur, Homer Owen, took the responsibility of selling the contents of the house before demolition. Citizens of Waco were excited to pay fifty cents apiece to view the inside of the house, while antique buyers encountered a feast. Everything inside, outside, and even parts of the house were for sale. Contents included love letters from Cameron to his second wife, proving that he was a very affectionate man. Doors, windows, trunks, evening clothes, wedding attire, and even structural items went into the hands of buyers.
Once the interest of the public swayed from Cameron’s house, mysterious reports came to light about the presence of a ghost. As Homer Owen was preparing for the demolition of the house, vandals broke into the home and caused damages, and as a result, Owen stayed in the house to keep watch during the night. Owen laid awake and reported strange noises and footsteps. He asked several individuals such as teenage boys, Baylor University students, and carpenters to stay in the house overnight and keep watch. Some of the guests stayed overnight but never returned, and some only lasted half the night. Many citizens of Waco rejected the stories, while some took them seriously and provided a theory that it was the ghost of the architect trying to drive people away to keep them from demolishing the house, or that it was the ghost of William Cameron himself.
After many years of serving as a beautiful landmark in Waco, the empty house caught fire in 1966, and the remainder of the house was later demolished. Today the William Cameron house rests in photographs, history books, and the memories of the citizens of Waco.
For more (including 4 images & 2 audio files) view the original article
]]>The Rotan-Dossett House is one of several preserved homes in Waco built by prominent figures of McLennan County. Though not a pioneer of the area, Edward Rotan was a major economic figure—a classic nineteenth-century capitalist. He came to McLennan County from Tennessee in 1867 and obtained a job as a schoolteacher. He subsequently worked for a wholesale grocery, bought out the business, and later served as the president of the largest bank in Waco for thirty-five years. Concurrent with all of his successes, Rotan used $80,000 he made in a real estate transaction to build himself a mansion which later became known as one of the most distinctive houses in Waco.
Rotan-Dossett House stands unique in the South as a result of its differing architectural style. While most large nineteenth century southern houses were designed in the Greek Revival or Victorian style, Rotan-Dossett House holds the influence of the Shingle, Stick, and Queen Anne styles in the structure. Though common in New England, these architectural elements were rarely seen in the South during this time.
Completed in 1891, wood and locally made orange brick largely composed the home’s exterior. Around 1900, Rotan added a two-story porch to the front of the home which today adds to its distinctive character. Quartersawn oak composed the interior rooms, and imitation leather wallpaper lined the halls. Ornate detailing decorates the doorframes, fireplace mantels, and staircase, and several stained glass windows line the second floor landing, adding to the house’s stately grandeur.
When Rotan eventually decided to sell his beautiful home, another successful businessman, Andrew J. Dossett, purchased it in 1917. The son of a small farmer, he first came from Mississippi to Cameron, Texas, where he bought a cotton compress warehouse. While living in Cameron he owned the Cameron First National Bank and a bank at Ben Arnold. He later bought into the Waco cotton compress warehouse, moved to Waco, and continued purchasing other warehouses around the state to amass his fortune.
Over the years, only minor alterations have been made to the interior of Rotan-Dossett House. Owners added a few bathrooms and permanent shut a few doors. A circulating hot water radiator system was also installed. In 1979, the home was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Descendants of A. J. Dossett today continue to reside in the historic downtown home. Current residents Elizabeth and Stuart Smith completed renovations on the exterior of the home to restore some of the damage wrought by over a century of use. Although Rotan-Dossett House remains a private residence, it stands today as a nod to a period of prosperity in Waco in part brought about by the efforts of prominent businessmen such as Edward Rotan and A. J. Dossett.
]]>Near the turn of the twentieth century, a booming cotton industry was quickly establishing Waco as one of the major urban centers of the South, encouraging many residents to more readily invest and spend their money locally. In 1890, local stone contractor John Tennant decided to build himself a new home after striking a deal with banker J. W. Mann. The deal provided Tennant with a plot of land in exchange for a stone obelisk to mark the Mann plot in Oakwood Cemetery. Tennant took leftover stone from his latest construction job, the Provident Building at the corner of Fourth Street and Franklin Avenue, in order to begin construction on the basement and foundation of his new home, situated at the outskirts of the city.
The reality of Tennant’s financial situation did not quite match up to his grandiose dreams. After struggling to make ends meet, he sold the unframed house to cotton broker Ripley Hanrick in 1906 under the agreement that Tennant could continue to do the stone work on the house. However, when financial difficulties continued, the pair abandoned the house in 1908.
A few years later, local investors employed Roy E. Lane to construct the elite Huaco Club in the same area as the castle. Some expressed concern over the abandoned and unfinished home, but Lane saw the building as a blank slate of potential. He convinced notable Wacoan and Civil War veteran Capt. Alfred Abeel to purchase the home in 1913. Abeel employed Lane to complete the frame. Lane transformed the frame into a castle complete with three stories and a basement, eight fireplaces, servants’ quarters, and a tower. Modeled after a small German castle along the Rhine River, white sandstone and small amounts of limestone composed the exterior of the house. The interior accents varied by room and floor, including imported materials such as Caen stone from France, Carrara marble from Italy, and Honduran mahogany paneling.
In 1941, Irene Pipkin, whose family owned the Pipkin Drugstores, purchased the home and moved in with her daughter and son-in-law. When she passed away, the castle passed to her daughter, Pauline Pipkin Garrett, Waco’s first female pharmacist. Pauline and her husband Barney Garrett resided in the home for many years.
After Pauline passed away, her will stated that Garrett could retain the home until he no longer wished to reside in it. When Garrett decided to move out, the home entered its only period of public use when it passed to the Austin Avenue Methodist Church. The church found the home to be an ideal place to host youth events, but the expense of keeping up the home soon became too great. The church sold the home to Jack Schwan in 1969 for $50,000.
The Schwan family fixed many of the issues in the home arising from age and disuse, and also renovated the second floor, following a tropical fantasy theme. In 1977, the Schwans applied for and received a historical marker for the home. The family attempted to sell the castle in 1982, believing it to be worth close to $1.25 million after the renovations. However, the high price frightened away many interested buyers.
Jack Schwan finally found a buyer in 1991 after cutting the price of the castle drastically. Over the next two decades, the home passed through various owners’ hands and fell into disrepair. Many owners found the castle too large and in need of too much maintenance to be a financially feasible home. In 2014, the home sold again and a new group—led by Oxford scholar Dirk Obbink, contractor Tom Lupfer Jr., and architect Sterling Thompson—has begun the process of renovating the castle.
In 2019 Cottonland Castle was purchased by Chip and Joanna Gaines of the famous retail empire Magnolia Market and they finished rennovation of the structure in summer 2022.
The castle will always be a striking hallmark of the Castle Heights neighborhood, and the impressive home continues to stand as a quiet reminder of the importance of the cotton industry which once brought prosperity to Waco.
For more (including 9 images & 2 audio files) view the original article
]]>Waco enjoyed an unprecedented level of economic prosperity when cotton was king in the early twentieth century. During this period, Waco’s prominent families commissioned residences that would speak to their affluence and elevated station. The Migel House at 1425 Columbus Avenue stands as an impressive architectural reminder of those boom years and the private citizens who sought to create a legacy for themselves through brick and mortar.
When investor Nelson Smith relocated to Waco from nearby Belton, Texas, he commissioned legendary Waco architect Milton W. Scott to build his family home on Columbus Avenue. Completed in 1910, the mansion served as the Smith residence for only a few years before it was sold to Louey Migel. A prominent Wacoan in his own right, Migel was part owner of the Goldstein-Migel department store which was a fixture in Waco retail for many years. The Migel family owned the house until 1969. In the years following, the house functioned as off-campus housing for Baylor University until the Freeman House paid $200,000 to use the residence as the women’s dormitory for its drug rehabilitation program. The Migel House is now privately owned.
The Migel House is a beautiful example of Beaux Arts revival style. Its Doric columns and the urns flanking the front walkway are reminiscent of a Greek temple, while the terra-cotta tiles and scalloped roof recall the architecture of a Spanish mission. The brickwork featuring festoons and cartouches makes this two-story structure one of the most uniquely adorned historic houses in Waco. The exterior of the house has remained largely the same for more than a century.
The driveway is covered by a brick porte cochere. A carriage house, built at the same time as the Migel House, sits in the back corner of the property and echoes the Beaux-Arts style.
The interior of the house has much of its original moulding, pocket doors, hand-painted canvas wallpaper, and stained glass windows. The full basement of this more than 10,000- square-foot home features a wooden bowling lane. Notably, the house survived the great tornado of 1953 that ripped through downtown Waco.
The Migel House remains a testament to a golden age of Waco architecture and the affluence that made such residences possible.
]]>Built when fewer than seven hundred citizens lived in Waco Village proper, the Earle-Napier-Kinnard House has truly been a witness to history.
In 1856, Thomas Harrison and John Baylis Earle purchased a double log cabin on five acres for $1,000. Two years later, Earle built a two-room brick home on three of the acres and moved into the residence with his wife Emma. The couple had their first three children in the home but eventually relocated to East Waco in order to be closer to the factory Earle established to manufacture uniforms for Confederate soldiers. In 1866, H. S. Morgan purchased the property for $4,000 in gold specie and started work on a two-story addition to the original building. By May of 1868, the house had new owners in Dr. John Smith Napier and his wife Mary, who acquired the property for $5,000. The Napiers took on the expansion project and enlarged the house to its present form. Unfortunately, Mary Napier did not get to enjoy the home for long as she passed away in April of 1872. Dr. Napier lived in the home until his death in 1889. Prior to her father’s death, Sallie Napier, one of the seven Napier children, took up residence in the family home with her husband Rev. David Cannon Kinnard. The Kinnards frequently entertained visiting preachers, leading the residence to be nicknamed “the House of Pastors” among their contemporaries. Mary, the eldest Kinnard daughter, moved into the house when she was five years old and lived there until her death at age ninety-four in 1957.
The house is built in the Greek Revival style, as evidenced by its white, pillared porticos. Its exterior is comprised of pale pink handmade brick from a local kiln. The porch has an ornamental wooden banister, which resembles ironwork, on both the upper and lower galleries. The windows are nicely adorned with cypress shutters.
In January of 1958, Frances Duncan Nalle purchased the house. Nalle initially oversaw the refurbishment of the residence. The restoration included enclosing the latticed back porch and adding two bathrooms over that porch on the second floor. Although the above efforts enabled the house to return to its former state, much of the property’s original acreage was lost to the construction of Interstate Highway 35. However, the above did not diminish the historic value of the house nor its appeal to the broader community. For a time the home served as a clubhouse for Baylor faculty social gatherings. A newlywed Baylor undergraduate couple, Kathleen and Herman Massey, lived there with full period furniture as onsite curators in the 1960s. Then in 1967, Nalle endowed the house and presented it, with all its antique furnishings, to the Waco Perpetual Growth Foundation.
On March 11, 1971, the National Register of Historic Places added the Earle-Napier-Kinnard House to its list of properties. It had the honor of being the third structure from Waco to be included, preceded only by the Suspension Bridge and Fort House.
The Earle-Napier-Kinnard House is now a public museum run by Historic Waco Foundation, placing it in the unique position of being a testament to Waco’s past while remaining a witness to the city’s future development.
For tours of the Earle-Napier-Kinnard House, or for more information about Historic Waco Foundation, visit www.historicwaco.org.
For more (including 3 images & 1 audio file) view the original article
]]>The history of Fort House is as much a narrative about a nineteenth-century family home as it is local twentieth century efforts to preserve the landmarks of Waco’s prosperous past.
The man behind one of Waco’s more distinctive homes was not a Texas native. Originally from La Grange, Alabama, William A. Fort came to Waco in 1854 with a caravan of five hundred people. He and his father established a plantation four miles south of Waco in the Downsville area. On May 7, 1856, he married Dionita Elizabeth Wilson. After the Civil War, Fort decided the area south of Waco was too devastated, so he purchased six acres of land at South Fourth Street and Webster Avenue from his wife for $1,300. In 1868, he built Fort House and moved his family to the city. Fort rose to prominence within Waco as the acting president of Waco National Bank, and the owner of the city’s first transit system.
Fort designed the house according to the Greek Revival style. It is constructed of locally made pink brick possibly sourced from the Trice brick kiln in East Waco. On either side of the front door are cypress wood, fluted ionic columns. The columns were made in New Orleans, shipped to Galveston, and then transported to Waco overland by ox cart and flat-bottom boat. The house also features cypress shutters and pine trim. The balcony above the front door originally extended to the columns.
The earliest floor plan consisted of a central hall with a bedroom on the left; staircase, parlor, and dining room on the right. The upper floor repeated the arrangement below with bedrooms to the right and left of a central hallway. At first the home featured a detached kitchen in order to minimize the danger of fire and to prevent kitchen heat, odor, and noise from entering the house. Around 1876, Fort elongated the ell, or perpendicular wing of the house, by adding two bedrooms on the upper floor and a kitchen and three-walled area on the first floor. This area was left open for wagons to pull in and unload provisions directly to the house.
The original plot of land on which Fort House stands extended from South Fourth Street and Webster Avenue to encompass six or more acres. The western boundary was Fifth Street. A white picket fence enclosed the property until the Fort family replaced it with a fancier wrought- iron fence sometime prior to 1890. This enclosure was necessary as the Fort family kept horses, cows, and poultry and maintained extensive vegetable gardens and orchards. Fort House underwent significant changes in the early twentieth century. From 1911 to 1955, the house ceased to be the residence of its namesake family and was rented out to various tenants. The property fell into decline until the Junior League of Waco purchased it in 1956. The Junior League commissioned architects Bob Bennett of Waco and Raiford Stripling of San Augustine, authorities on early Texas restorations, with the task of returning the home to its former state. Initially, the organization intended to use the refurbished home as a headquarters and tearoom. However, recognizing the property’s historic value, the Junior League deeded the house to the Waco Society for Historic Preservation (later Historic Waco Foundation). In 1970, Congressman W. R. Poage announced Fort House had been selected for the National Register of Historic Places. The residence served as a public museum until 2019. In March 2019, Chip and Joanna Gaines purchased the home to be added to their Magnolia Market properties. Although it is no longer open for viewing, Fort House stands preserved as a physical reminder of the legacy of the Fort family and the value Wacoans place on history.
]]>On the east bank of the Brazos River stands East Terrace House, a residence with a past that is as remarkable as its Italianate style of architecture.
Future industrialist John Wesley Mann moved to Waco in 1858 from Lebanon, Tennessee. He raised horses until he enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861 as a private in Company G, Sixth Regiment, Texas Cavalry. Mann served as a blacksmith and as a member of a scout company throughout the duration of the war. Having survived the war, Mann looked to settle down. He married Cemira Howard Twaddle Mann in 1868. Mann purchased property on the east bank of the Brazos River. In 1874, J. W. Mann, his wife, and first son, Howard moved into the completed East Terrace House.
The residence is an example of Italianate architecture, a style seen but rarely in the South. East Terrace offers a visual feast of the Italianate with its vertical proportions, tall hooded windows, horizontal roofline, and bracketed cornices. Its square Mansard-roofed cupola is particularly striking. The cupola boasts a tower room with excellent views of the estate’s acreage and the Brazos River.
Mann designed his family residence to be well suited to matters of business and pleasure. A successful industrialist, Mann conducted much of his commercial dealings from the comfort of his home office due to its relative proximity to his brick kilns, sand barges on the Brazos, and other ventures. In order to better entertain clients and leading members of Wacoan society, Mann added a dining room and large bedroom to East Terrace in 1880. The family furnished the bedroom with six small beds to accommodate overnight guests. By 1884, Mann approved a second addition to the house, an entertainment wing complete with its own entrance hall and ballroom. Parties in the East Terrace ballroom were a grand event. The Manns would host frequent summer balls that attracted so many society figures that extra stable boys had to be hired to take care of the numerous carriages and horses.
No less impressive were the original grounds of East Terrace. Resplendent with rose gardens, strutting peacocks, an orchard, columbine-draped terraces, and a sunken garden with a goldfish pond, the Mann family’s estate was a small Eden along the Brazos. However, East Terrace’s proximity to the river meant that it was also susceptible to flood waters. Several times the grounds were overtaken by the swollen banks of the river, and at least once the waters rose as high as four feet in the residence’s ground floor.
The early part of the twentieth century witnessed a decline in fortune for the estate. While Howard Mann retained possession of the house, it ceased to be a grand family residence. From 1930 to 1939, Mann leased East Terrace to Charles Lemly who converted it into the Lemly Chiropractic Psychopathic Sanatorium. After Lemly, Mann rented the house to different tenants but under the stipulation that he be allowed to keep a room there. When Mann passed away in 1948, East Terrace stood vacant except for the occasional presence of vagrants.
Thankfully, East Terrace was not to be left to the ravages of time. Young Brothers Contractors purchased the estate in the 1950s to use the site for equipment storage. Recognizing the historic value of the property, Young Brothers deeded East Terrace to the Heritage Society in 1960. Financial gifts from the Cooper Foundation, Eleanor Pape, Lucille Massey, and others enabled two restoration projects to be carried out in 1960 and 1966, respectively. In 1967 East Terrace received the Texas Restoration Award.
East Terrace House is now an historic house museum run by Historic Waco Foundation.
For tours of East Terrace House, or for more information about Historic Waco Foundation, visit www.historicwaco.org.
For more (including 8 images & 4 audio files) view the original article
]]>McCulloch House is a historic house museum owned by Historic Waco Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to maintain and preserve the history of Waco. This organization owns three historic house museums in Waco in addition to the McCulloch House: Earle-Napier-Kinnard House, Fort House, and East Terrace House.
Josiah Caldwell, a Waco physician, built what would become McCulloch House for his wife, Maria Caldwell, and their five children in 1866. Originally, the structure was a two-bedroom house with a detached kitchen.
In 1871, local merchant Champe Carter McCulloch and wife Emma bought the house and began renovations. They worked on the house for eleven years, first building another wing, and eventually expanding the house into a two-story building. The Greek Revival addition was completed in 1872. In enlarging the house, the workers made use of local pink brick.
Mr. McCulloch was a prominent Wacoan, a local merchant who made frequent trips to New York to buy merchandise for local vendors. He also served as mayor of the city for eleven years. The McCullochs raised seven children in the house, but also ensured that the house remained part of the Waco social scene, hosting many dances and parties. It became a part of a series of houses throughout Central Texas that allowed people to travel and experience different cities such as Dallas and Houston. People went on “pilgrimages” to these different houses in order to participate in the dances and parties, getting an idea of what life in those cities might be like. McCulloch House made a significant impact on the city of Waco through the effect these pilgrimages had upon the city’s social life and population.
The 1953 tornado destroyed a large portion of McCulloch House which later had to be completely reconstructed. Some of this damage can still be seen today, such as the portion of stairs that remains slanted. Members of the McCulloch family continued to live in the house until 1971, at which point the heirs donated it to Historic Waco Foundation. McCulloch House has a lively history that is continuously being enhanced by the people who maintain it.
For tours of the McCulloch House, or for more information about Historic Waco Foundation, visit www.historicwaco.org.
For more (including 5 images & 2 audio files) view the original article
]]>