D.P. and Louise Moore House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, some men arrive in a place and leave hardly a footprint. Dolph Phenias Moore was not that kind of man.

D.P. Moore came to Matagorda County in 1869, and from that moment forward, the county was never quite the same. He married Louise Wendel in 1879, and together those two raised ten children.

Ten. You think about the noise, the meals, the boots lined up by the door, and then you think about what else this man was doing at the same time, and it starts to seem almost unreasonable. He was a merchant.

A rancher. A landowner. The kind of man who kept several big irons in the fire and somehow none of them went cold.

Now here's the thing that really sticks with you. In 1894, Moore sold the very land on which the town of Bay City was platted. The town itself.

Then, with what you might call a certain confidence in his own judgment, he moved his family right into that same town that same year. Planted his flag in the ground he'd just helped create. And if ten children and a new town weren't enough to keep a man occupied, Moore made himself instrumental in bringing railroads to Bay City and in developing the area's rice industry.

He donated land for Cedarvale Cemetery and Park, because a man who thinks about the living ought to think about the resting place too. Then, in 1902, local contractors Hatchett and Large built the Moore family a fifteen-room Queen Anne style house right there in Bay City. Fifteen rooms.

Louise had ten children to fill them. Dolph Phenias Moore was born in 1852 and died in 1928, and somewhere between those two years, he sold the ground a whole town stands on, helped the trains find their way there, and built a house big enough to hold everything he loved. That's not a footprint.

That's a foundation.

What the marker says

Dolph Phenias (D.P.) Moore (1852-1928) moved to Matagorda County in 1869. He married Louise Wendel in 1879 and together they reared ten children. A successful merchant, rancher, and landowner, Moore sold the land on which the town of Bay City was platted in 1894. He moved his family to Bay City that year. Local contractors Hatchett & Large built this 15-room Queen Anne style house for the Moores in 1902. A prominent civic leader, Moore was instrumental in bringing railroads to Bay City and in the development of the area's rice industry. He donated land for Cedarvale Cemetery and Park. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1995