DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Doans' Adobe Building out in Wilbarger County. Now settle in, because this one's got the Red River, the Western Trail, and a man who knew how to keep the coffee on for just about everybody. Corwin F.
Doan — born 1848, and he'd live all the way to 1929 — came out here and settled on the Red River in 1878. That's the kind of move that takes either vision or stubbornness, and out on the Texas frontier, those two things look about the same. Three years later, in 1881, he put up a house.
Adobe. Solid. Built to last.
And last it did. But before that permanent structure went up, Doan was already in business. He ran an early picket store — rough-hewn, frontier-practical — stocked with large supplies of goods aimed squarely at the cowboys pushing cattle north along the Western Trail.
We're not talking a trickle of longhorns here. We're talking herds of thousands, driven annually right through this stretch of country. Those cowboys needed supplies, and Corwin Doan had them.
The place that grew up around all this — they called it Doan's Crossing — and at its height it had fourteen or more buildings standing. Fourteen. Out here where the wind doesn't ask permission and the river does whatever it pleases, that's a community.
Now inside that adobe house, Corwin and his wife Lide — born 1850, gone by 1905 — and their three children kept a kind of open door that would make your head spin if you thought too hard about the guest list. English lords. Indians.
Cowboys trail-dusted from a hundred miles of driving cattle. People from every walk of life passed through that doorway, sat under that roof, and were received by the Doan family. There's something quietly remarkable about that — a house on the Red River where the frontier flattened every social distinction just long enough for folks to share the same shade.
The adobe's still there. And now you know whose hands built it, and whose table it stood behind.
What the marker says
Corwin F. Doan (1848-1929) settled here on Red River in 1878; erected this house in 1881. In his early picket store and later, permanent building, he had large stocks of goods to supply the cowboys who annually drove cattle in herds of thousands along the Western Trail. The village of "Doan's Crossing" had 14 or more buildings. Doan, his wife Lide (1850-1905), and their 3 children entertained people from all walks of life -- English Lords to Indians -- in this adobe house. (Recorded Texas Historic Landmark--1962.)