E.M. Hardigree Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. There's a house out in Mitchell County that's been holdin' stories since 1890, when a man named H.D. Shepperd built it.

Just a house, you might think. But the right walls in the right place have a way of collecting history like a front porch collects dust. Shepperd built it, and it stood.

Then in 1899, he sold it to a man named Martin Dies, Sr. Now that sale, unremarkable on its face, turned out to matter quite a bit, because somewhere inside those walls, Martin Dies, Jr. came into the world. That boy would grow up to become a famous U.S.

Congressman. The kind of man people remember. And it all started right there, in a house another man had built nine years before he ever arrived.

That's the thing about a good house. It outlasts the plans of the person who put it up. But the story doesn't stop with the Dies family.

The home also belonged to G.W. and Alice Garrett Plaster, and if the marker calls them colorful, you can bet that word is earnin' its keep. That couple worked Mitchell County ranch land for over fifty years. Over fifty years.

That's not a career, that's a commitment. That's boots worn down to nothing and replaced and worn down again. G.W. and Alice Garrett Plaster put their decades into that land, and this house was part of it.

One structure, built in 1890, and it carries a congressman's birthplace, a half-century of ranch life, and the kind of quiet endurance that doesn't make headlines but absolutely makes a place. Mitchell County has got its share of wide-open land. But every now and then, a single house holds more than its share of the story.

What the marker says

Built 1890 by H.D. Shepperd. Sold, 1899 to Martin Dies, Sr. Birthplace of Martin Dies, Jr., famous U.S. Congressman. Home of colorful early-day ranch couple, G.W. and Alice Garrett Plaster, Mitchell County ranchers for over fifty years. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967.