DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Sit back and let me paint you a picture of a house that's been watching the Clear Fork of the Trinity River roll by for well over a hundred years. The Cobb-Burney House.
That name alone ought to tell you there's more than one chapter to this story. The house went up in 1904, built right along the bluff above the Clear Fork — prominently sited, the marker says, and that's no accident. When you're a mortgage company president, you want your home doing some of the talking for you.
Lyman D. Cobb and his wife Emma had this place built, and it sat there above that river with a low-pitched roof and wide overhanging eaves, casement windows multiplied across the facade — the whole composition drawn straight from the influence of the Chicago Prairie School of architecture. Out here in Texas, that's a statement.
That's somebody saying: I know what's happening in the wider world, and I'm bringing it home. Now, Emma Cobb sold the house in 1919 — and here's where the second name on the sign earns its place. The buyer was Judge Ivy Burney, a lawyer whose special field was the cattle industry.
A judge with cattle on his mind, living in a Prairie School house on a Trinity River bluff. That's Texas doing what Texas does — layering things together that you wouldn't necessarily expect to find in the same room. The house has outlasted both families, still sitting up on that bluff, those wide eaves still throwing shade, those casement windows still catching the light off the Clear Fork.
Some houses just know how to hold their ground.
What the marker says
Prominently sited along the bluff of the Clear Fork of the Trinity River, this home was built in 1904 for mortgage company president Lyman D. Cobb and his wife, Emma. Emma Cobb sold the home in 1919 to Judge Ivy Burney, a lawyer whose special field was the cattle industry. The low-pitched roof, wide overhanging eaves, and use of multiple casement windows reflect influences of the Chicago Prairie School style of architecture. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1985.