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If
you’re a fan of dog-trot
houses--and know what they are--here is an opportunity you shouldn’t miss.
The SFA Gardens of Stephen F. Austin State University will host a tour
of two historic Shelby County dog-trot homes on Saturday, Sept. 1, from 9 a.m.
to noon.
For those of you who missed some of your history lessons in school,
dog trot homes
were built with breezeways or “dog runs” through the middle for air circulation.
They became known as dog trots because dogs usually slept there or trotted though
the breezeway instead of running around the house.
“Without electricity
or air conditioning, dog-trots were designed for the air to flow through the middle
and circulate through cross-ventilated doorways and windows in a Southern climate
where hot, humid summers were more unbearable than the brief winters,” said Elyce
Rodewald, the SFA Gardens education coordinator.
These homes were the
first “green houses” and were once common throughout the South, but most have
practically disappeared from modern society, said Rodewald. |
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Both
of the homes on the tour are in the Arcadia community, between Garrison
and Center, and belonged to the family
of Greg Grant, co-author of two home landscaping books.
Arcadia, established
around 1887, was once a thriving community with several mercantile stores, and
churches, three schools, a blacksmith shop, syrup mill, cotton gin, barber shop,
baseball field and a post office.
Today, there are no businesses in Arcadia
and the community only has a population of fifty-one.
Other dog trot houses
like those at Arcadia, fortunately, still stand elsewhere throughout East
Texas and have been beautifully restored as historic landmarks by their owners.
Bob
Bowman's East Texas August 15, 2010Column.
A weekly column syndicated
in 109 East Texas newspapers | |
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