DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just along for the ride. Now, every city has a place where the party never really stops — and Dallas had the Alexander Mansion. Built in 1906, out on what was then the most remote edge of Dallas, by a businessman named C.
H. Alexander. Most folks building at the edge of town are either running from something or dreaming of something.
The marker doesn't say which it was for Alexander, but what it does say is this: he spent a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars on that house. In 1906. Let that settle for a moment.
That wasn't building a home. That was making a statement. And the statement echoed, because the Alexander Mansion became the setting for what the marker calls a glittering social life in early twentieth century Dallas.
Glittering. That's a word somebody chose carefully, and it does the work. Then came 1930, and the Dallas Woman's Forum acquired the place.
Whatever the social calendar had looked like before, it now had new stewards. The mansion carried on. And then in 1967, it was restored and redecorated — brought back to something worthy of that original hundred and twenty-five thousand dollar vision.
Some buildings outlast the people who build them by just standing there. The Alexander Mansion outlasted them by still throwing a good party.
What the marker says
Setting for glittering social life in early 20th century. Built 1906 on most remote edge of Dallas by a businessman, C.H. Alexander, at a cost of $125,000. Acquired 1930 by the Dallas Woman's Forum; Restored and redecorated in 1967. Recorded Texas Historical Landmark, 1968.