DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Around 1895, a man named Daniel H. Caswell rolled into Austin from Nashville, Tennessee, and he didn't come empty-handed in the ambition department.
He purchased a cotton oil manufacturing company — just walked right into that industry like he already owned the place, which, come to think of it, he soon did. He bought cotton, he sold cotton, and then in 1899 he went ahead and built himself a cotton gin, because apparently two cotton ventures weren't quite enough for Daniel H. Caswell.
By 1900, with all that enterprise humming along, he built his family a house. Now, where'd he put it? The far northwest corner of the city.
The far northwest corner. Out where the city just kind of trailed off and decided to let the countryside take over for a while. And into that frontier edge of Austin, he planted something that would stop you cold if you rounded a corner and came upon it unexpected.
The Caswell house carries influences of late Victorian, Colonial Revival, and Chateauesque style — and if that sounds like three different architects arguing at a dinner party, well, the result is something to behold. It features a corner turret reaching up like it's keeping watch over all that northwest nothing, and porches held up on rusticated piers, solid and unhurried, the kind of stonework that says we are not going anywhere. A man came up from Nashville, built an empire out of cotton, and then capped it all off with a house that looked like it belonged somewhere between a French château and a Southern veranda dream.
Out on the edge of Austin. In 1900. Some people leave a mark — Daniel H.
Caswell left a turret.
What the marker says
Daniel H. Caswell came to Austin from Nashville, Tennessee, about 1895. He purchased a cotton oil manufacturing company, bought and sold cotton, and in 1899 built a cotton gin. When completed for his family in 1900, this house was located in the far northwest corner of the city. The Caswell house, which exhibits influences of late Victorian, Colonial Revival, and Chateauesque style, features a corner turret and porches supported on rusticated piers. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1984