DUANE
Duane's take
The way the marker tells it, here's the story of the Dilue Rose and Ira Albert Harris House in Colorado County. In 1845, Dilue Rose and Ira Albert Harris packed up and moved from Houston to Columbus, and they didn't come quietly. Ira made himself a fixture in the community — serving as county sheriff and city marshal — which, if you think about that combination of jobs, suggests Columbus was a place that kept a man busy.
Meanwhile, Dilue was doing something equally remarkable. She was writing. Writing down her experiences during the Texas Revolution, experiences that would eventually find their way into print for the world to read.
Two people, one household, both leaving their marks — just in very different ways. By 1858, they built themselves a home. Raised nine children in it.
Nine. Let that settle for a moment. The house they built was no ordinary structure.
Concrete walls with stucco on the exterior — not your typical frontier timber frame. It follows what's called a simple Cumberland plan, two rooms, with box columns on the porch, squared-wood balusters, a hipped roof, and two exterior chimneys. And then there's the detail that really sets it apart: a basement.
The marker notes that a basement was an unusual feature after 1860, which means the Harris family had themselves something genuinely uncommon for the era. A woman who chronicled a revolution, a man who kept the peace, nine children underfoot, and a concrete house with a basement standing in Columbus. That's a family that did not do things halfway.
What the marker says
Dilue Rose and Ira Albert Harris moved from Houston to Columbus in 1845. Ira served as county sheriff and city marshall, and Dilue wrote of her experiences during the Texas Revolution, later published. They built this house in 1858 and lived in it with their nine children. The house was constructed of concrete with stucco applied to the exterior. The two-room plan house contains a basement, an unusual feature after 1860. An interpretation of a simple Cumberland plan, the house features box columns on the porch, squared-wood balusters, a hipped roof and two exterior chimneys. RTHL - 1966