Dr. I. B. Nofsinger House

Duane's take

The way I heard it, this one comes straight off the official marker for the Dr. I. B.

Nofsinger House in Bastrop County, so let me tell it right. Now, some folks are born where they're meant to stay, and some folks are born somewhere else entirely. I.

B. Nofsinger was born in Kentucky in 1864, and by the time he was twenty years old, Texas had already called his name. He came here, took up teaching school, and then, well, he decided that wasn't quite enough.

So he turned right back around, went home to Kentucky, and studied medicine. That kind of determination has a way of paying off. Nofsinger came back to Texas as a doctor this time, and he set up his practice over in McDade, about eight miles east of where we're standing now.

Then he made another move, brought his practice here, and that's when the story gets interesting. In 1906, Dr. Nofsinger and his wife Mary, she went by Mary McWilliams before she took his name, built themselves a home.

Now Mary wasn't just the doctor's wife. She was a pharmacist in her own right. Between the two of them, they had medicine and pharmacy under one roof.

That's a household that takes care of business. And the house they built, it was something worth talking about. They had it constructed of brick from a local kiln, and they didn't go plain about it.

They went Queen Anne. Decorative detailing, the kind that makes a building announce itself. And then there's the corner tower, rising up with a conical roof sitting right on top of it like a crown.

Mary passed in 1934. The doctor followed in 1938. But that house, brick and tower and all, stayed in the Nofsinger family clear until 1978.

From 1906 to 1978, it held. A Kentucky boy who came to Texas at twenty, taught school, studied medicine, doctored in McDade, moved his practice, built a brick house with a tower, and his family kept it for over seven decades. Some houses are just built to last.

This one had the right people behind it.

What the marker says

Kentucky native I. B. Nofsinger (1864 - 1938) came to Texas at the age of 20 and taught school before returning to his home state to study medicine. He was a doctor in McDade (8 mi. E) prior to moving his practice here. In 1906 he and his wife Mary (McWilliams) (d. 1934), a pharmacist, built this home, which remained in their family until 1978. Constructed of brick from a local kiln, it features Queen Anne detailing and a distinctive corner tower with a conical roof. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982