Texas Architecture Feature Articles

• Indianola Remnants by Mike Cox 5-1-08
  Indianola, once the “Queen City of the West,” recovered from a killer hurricane in 1875 but it did not survive a second devastating storm in 1886... If you want to see some of Indianola’s stately Victorian houses, just go to Victoria or Cuero...
• Dog trot houses by Bob Bowman 3-24-08
  Dog trot houses were built and occupied by East Texas’ earliest settlers. Many of them migrated here in the early l800s from the Old South and brought southern customs, including the way buildings were constructed with them.
• Cementville and the Abandoned Quarries 3-12-08
• Rock Fences by Mike Cox 2-7-08
  "While rock fences also are known as “German fences,” research by University of Texas graduate Laura Knott, a landscape architect specializing in historic preservation revealed that dry-laid fences did not originate in Germany. Rather, the style used in Texas and elsewhere in the South seems to have been modeled after rock fences common to Great Britain."
  
• To Build a House II by C. F. Eckhardt
  Adobe Houses
  "...Indians did not build in adobe. Adobe was brought to the Americas by the Spanish. Adobe is mud brick, made with mud and straw-the same bricks the Hebrews in Egypt were told to make without straw. Finding the right kind of dirt to make adobe from was sometimes tricky..."
• To Build a House by C. F. Eckhardt
  Texas Log Cabins and Log Houses
  The first house a man might build, at least in East and Central Texas, was a log cabin. Log cabins, by the way, looked nothing like the log houses usually called 'log cabins' today. The most common size was 12" x 14", usually the logs were not dressed...
• Dog-Trot Houses by Clay Coppedge
  Driving west on State Highway 36 toward Gatesville, just past Flat, if you look at just the right time at the right place you can see an old dog-trot house sitting about 100 yards off the road...
  
• The Quito Quarry 5-19-05
  Santa Rosa sandstone east of Barstow
  
• Lost Buildings of the "Macaroni" Railroad in Inez, Texas 1-10-05
  Photos and text by Sara Duncan
  Railroad laborers' cabins
• Austin's Moonlight Towers by Johnny Stucco 11-6-04
  Officially recognized as state archeological landmarks
  Listed on the National Register of Historic Places
• Quarry Quandary
  Texas’ Untoward Underground by Brewster Hudspeth 7-15-04
• Buildings inside Buildings by John Troesser 4-21-04
  Little Church in the Warehouse (Fort Worth)
  The Siddon-Barnes Log Cabin, Chico, Texas
  History in the Hotel Lobby, Austin, Texas
  
• Limestone Fence Posts by Brewster Hudspeth 3-17-04
  Ten Things You Need to Know About Limestone Fence Posts
• Juan's Cabin by Bob Bowman 3-17-04
  The still-standing log cabin of Juan Antonio Badillo, one of a handful of Tejanos who died at the Alamo on March 6, 1836
• The Church Lights by Bob Bowman 12/1/03
  When the church decided to phase out the old kerosene lights for safety reasons, Clark went to Jefferson Lighting Company of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and told them what he wanted. The reproduction fixtures were custom-made for the church down to the ornate decorations and adapted to electricity.
• Revisiting Outhouses by Bob Bowman 9/01
  The only existing East Texas outhouse ever built by the Work Projects Administration
• Saving Sallie's Home by Bob Bowman 8/03
  The proud old house looked as if it might fall down. Turkey vultures perched on its roof like sinister messengers of doom.
• The Millard Sorghum Silo of Nacogdoches by Robert Rand Russell 8/03
  That old red brick silo, sound and plumb as it was in 1915 due to the Old World craftsmanship of John "Dutch" Heaberlin and the enterprising Jesse Millard, Sr., prevails as a witness of East Texas history and prosperity... Another landmark casting a shadow. Now this one also shines with a story...
• Outhouses by Bob Bowman 6-03
  The old-fashioned outhouse, which served thousands of rural East Texans before indoor bathrooms became affordable, has again become fashionable, but not as a working privy. It is showing up in historical displays, as art and in advertisements.
• The Corn Crib by Bob Bowman
• Another Megargel Landmark: the Megargel High School Gym by Jamo C. Powell, Colonel (Ret.) US Army
• The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas by John Troesser
• Temple to the Brave, Beaumont, Texas by John Troesser
• The Top Ten Facts About The Construction of The San Jacinto Monument
• The Starr Family Mansion by Archie McDonald
  
• The Muldoon Quarry - A Sedimental Journey
  
• The Castle Builder by Bob Bowman
  
• Masons: Building Temples in East Texas by Archie McDonald
  
• Yoakum's Library