Fleming-Welder House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Somewhere in Victoria County, there stands a house that has outlasted every hand that built it, bought it, and shaped it into what it is today. And that is saying something.

Around 1911, a local rancher and postmaster by the name of Edward R. Fleming, along with his wife Lillian, she was a Mueller before she married, hired a builder named B. F.

Williams to put this house up. Now, we don't know every conversation that passed between the Flemings and B. F.

Williams, but we know the result was something worth keeping. Then came 1919, and Charles and Wilhemina Grunder purchased the property. They held it, and then in 1936 they sold it to a woman named Eliza Hughes Welder.

And that is where the story really finds its shape. Mrs. Welder took the house and made changes to it, and what you see standing there today, that colonial revival look, that is the period of her ownership talking to you across the years.

Now, here is what sets this house apart from most colonial revival buildings, because there are plenty of those scattered across this state. This one carries elongated dormers and horizontal lines that give it a character all its own. Most colonial revival buildings don't wear those particular details.

This one does. Three families, one builder, and somewhere around a century of standing. Not bad for a rancher and a postmaster who just needed a house built.

What the marker says

Local rancher and postmaster Edward R. Fleming and his wife Lillian (Mueller) hired B. F. Williams to build this house about 1911. Charles and Wilhemina Grunder purchased the property in 1919, and sold it to Eliza Hughes Welder in 1936. Mrs. Welder made changes to the house, and its current colonial revival appearance reflects the period of her ownership. It is distinguished from most colonial revival buildings by its elongated dormers and horizontal lines. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1996