Early Texas Hotels and Inns

Duane's take

Well, here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Two miles east of where you're sitting right now, out at a place called Winedale, there stands a building that's been a lot of things to a lot of people. Today it's a University of Texas research center.

But back in the 1850s, folks knew it simply as the Old Sam Lewis Stopping Place, and the story of how it got to be either of those things is worth a few miles of your attention. The structure itself goes back even further than the 1850s. It was built in 1834 as a settler's two-room log cabin, hand-hewn cedar, nothing fancy.

Then it was enlarged, not once but twice, and improved in style with the work of local German craftsmen. After 1848, it became home to Lewis, his wife, and their eight children. Eight children in a place that started as two rooms.

That alone tells you something about the spirit of early Texas. But the family didn't keep the place to themselves. Guests from passing stagecoaches were entertained there too, which makes sense, because the inn sat near roads connecting major Texas cities.

It was positioned, in other words, exactly where a stopping place needed to be. Now here's a thing worth understanding about early Texas travel. Many roadside homes weren't just homes.

They were inns, whether the family had planned on that or not. A horseback traveler would ride up, shelter his pony in the barn, share the family's meals, and get a room for the night. All the stage lines depended on exactly that kind of arrangement, for changes of horses, for passengers' meals, for overnight stops.

Travel was difficult at best, and such inns rendered, the marker puts it plainly, a service of great public necessity. Not a luxury. A necessity.

And not every stop was as comfortable as the Sam Lewis place. A frontier inn might be nothing more than a dugout. Guests rolled up in blankets and slept on the floor.

The marker notes, almost gently, that travelers sometimes had to sleep under a tree, so any sort of sheltering house was usually welcomed. You didn't complain about the accommodations when the alternative was open sky and hard ground. These stops did more than shelter bodies, too.

Most stage stops dispatched and received United States mail for the surrounding community. They were, in a real sense, the connective tissue of early Texas life. And towns originated at many of those stops.

Out of a barn and a spare room and a family willing to set an extra plate, whole communities grew. The more celebrated establishments had grander names. The Tremont in Galveston.

The Old Capitol in Houston. Several hotels in Austin. Famous places, all of them.

But the truth of early Texas hospitality lives just as much in a two-room cedar cabin out at Winedale, where Lewis and his wife and their eight children kept the door open, the horses fed, and the stagecoach passengers moving down the road.

What the marker says

Two miles east, at Winedale, is the Old "Sam Lewis Stopping Place" of the 1850s--a typical early Texas inn, now a University of Texas research center. Built 1834, as a settler's 2-room log cabin of hand-hewn cedar; then enlarged twice and (with work of local German craftsmen) improved in style, it was home after 1848 to Lewis, his wife, eight children; also entertained guests from passing stagecoaches. It was near roads connecting major Texas cities. Many roadside homes in early Texas were inns. The horseback traveler would shelter his pony in the barn, share family meals, get a room for the night. All stage lines depended on such accommodations-- for changes of horses, for passengers' meals, and for overnight stops. With travel difficult at best, such inns rendered a service of great public necessity. A frontier inn might even be a dugout, where the guests rolled up in blankets and slept on the floor. (Travelers sometimes had to sleep under a tree, so any sort of sheltering house was usually welcomed.) Most stage stops dispatched and received U.S. mail for the community. Towns originated at many stops. In early Texas, famous hotels included the Tremont, Galveston;The Old Capitol, Houston; several in Austin. (1967)