Connell House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to do it justice. Way out in Martin County, there's a house that has quietly outlasted almost everybody who ever called it home. The Connell House.

And its story starts before there was even a Stanton to put it in. The year was 1882, and a pair of Carmelite Priests needed a place to lay their heads in what was then just raw West Texas country. So they built themselves a two-room home, plain and modest, and just like that, they had constructed the very first building in what would become the town of Stanton.

Two rooms. That's where this whole story begins. Then comes 1902, and with it, Dennis and Mary Connell.

Mary was a Stoeger before she married Dennis, and after their wedding they made that modest little structure their home. Now, here is where a simple house becomes something else entirely. Mary Connell bore eight children inside those walls.

Eight. And a house, if it has any sense at all, knows when it needs to grow. By 1915 the place had stretched itself out to five rooms.

Then the 1920s came along and brought more additions, and the 1930s did the same. The house kept pace with the family that loved it. What you see today, if you stand in front of it, is something that wears its history on the outside.

There's a distinctive west gable that catches your eye. Weatherboard siding running along the walls. A front porch with a shed room and turned-wood posts holding it all up, and double primary entry doors that seem to say, come on in, we've got room.

And for a long time, they did. But time has a way of quieting a house down. One by one the Connells were gone, until the last Connell daughter passed away in 1990.

Upon her death, the house was transferred to the local historical museum. A two-room shelter built for two priests in 1882 had carried a whole family, a whole century, and the founding story of an entire town. That little house in Stanton has earned its rest.

What the marker says

Constructed in 1882 as a two-room home for Carmelite Priests, this was the first building in Stanton. Dennis and Mary (Stoeger) Connell made their home here after their marriage in 1902. Mary bore eight children in the house, which grew with the family. By 1915 the house had five rooms, with more additions made in the 1920s and 1930s. The simple home features a distinctive west gable, weatherboard siding, a front porch with shed room and turned-wood posts, and double primary entry doors. Upon the death of the last Connell daughter in 1990 the house was transferred to the local historical museum. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1997