Cedar Log Cabin Museum

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Cedar Log Cabin Museum out in San Saba County. Now, there are buildings that survive because they're beautiful, and there are buildings that survive because they worked. The old cedar log stables you're hearing about today, they fall square into that second camp.

These stables stood on the Chas. Harris ranch, down on Cherokee Creek, fourteen miles south of San Saba. And they were built with one hard, practical purpose in mind: keeping Indians from stealing horses.

That's what the record says, plain and simple. They were doing that job over a hundred years ago, out there on that stretch of Texas land, and they held up. Cedar has a way of doing that.

Those stables made it all the way to the present, which is more than a lot of things from that era can claim. Now, the story of how this place came to be remembered as a museum carries its own quiet weight. These stables were given in memory of Eula Gray Kuykendall, who was born in 1888 and passed in 1958.

The gift came from her husband, Warren U. Kuykendall, and from Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Kuykendall, and from her other children.

That's a family honoring a woman they loved, choosing something old and sturdy and true to carry her name forward. Seems right, somehow. Cedar doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't.

What the marker says

Stables used over 100 years ago to prevent Indians from stealing horses on the Chas. Harris ranch on Cherokee Creek 14 mi. south San Saba; given in memory of Eula Gray Kuykendall (1888-1958) by her husband Warren U. Kuykendall and Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Kuykendall and her other children