Cloud Place

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of Cloud Place, and it's one worth hearing slow. Now, 1879 is when it all comes together. Out in Kimble County, a man named W.

J. Cloud needed a house. Not just any house, mind you, a house for a family of fourteen.

That's not a household, friends, that's a small settlement wearing one roof. Cloud was no stranger to hard things. He'd served with Terry's Texas Rangers during the Civil War, which means he already knew a thing or two about doing what needs doing in difficult country.

And Kimble County in 1879 was about as difficult as country gets. So here's how you build a place like that out there. The stone, eighteen-inch-thick walls of it, came right out of the nearby mountain.

Eighteen inches. You could lean against that wall on a July afternoon and almost feel the cool of it. And the lumber?

The lumber came from Austin, hauled out by ox-wagons across country that did not make hauling easy. Every board that went into those wide board floors was earned by the slow, stubborn patience of oxen and the men who walked beside them. What came out of all that stone and timber and determination was something that became more than just a home.

Cloud Place grew into an early social center for Kimble County; a place where fourteen people lived and a whole community gathered. That's the thing about building with eighteen-inch walls. You're not just keeping out the weather.

You're building something that intends to last.

What the marker says

1879. Early Kimble County social center. Built for his family of 14 by W. J. Cloud, a veteran of Terry's Texas Rangers service during the Civil War. Stone for 18-inch walls came from nearby mountain, lumber by ox-wagons, from Austin. Has wide board floors. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965