Flowers House

Duane's take

The marker's got the story, and here's how I tell it. Out in McLennan County, there's a house that's been standing since 1910, and it carries a lot of history in those walls. This was the home of Felix A.

Flowers, born in 1870, a local cotton gin operator who clearly did well for himself. His wife Lucinda Mixson Flowers, born in 1875, was known as a social and civic leader in the community. Together, they built something worth remembering.

Now the man they hired to design it was no ordinary fellow. Roy E. Lane, born in 1884, came out of Missouri and made central Texas his canvas.

Between 1907 and 1936, Lane designed many structures right there in Waco, and he earned himself a reputation as a prominent architect across the region. When the Flowers family came to him, Lane brought his craftsman sensibilities to bear, and you can see those influences woven all through the house. Completed in 1910, the place stands as a reminder of what cotton meant to this part of Texas in the early twentieth century.

Cotton wasn't just a crop out here. It was prosperity. It was ambition.

It was the reason a man like Felix Flowers could commission a prominent architect and build something that would last. And last it did. The house stayed in the Flowers family all the way until 1957, when it was finally sold.

Felix had passed in 1950, Lucinda the year before in 1949, but the house they built together had already outlasted them both, and it's still out there today, a craftsman-touched monument to cotton money and the people who shaped a community around it.

What the marker says

This was the home of local cotton gin operator Felix A. Flowers (1870-1950) and his wife Lucinda Mixson flowers (1875-1949), a local social and civic leader. The house was designed by Missouri-born Roy E. Lane (1884-1956), a prominent central Texas architect who designed many structures in Waco between 1907 and 1936. Completed in 1910, the house reflects craftsman influences evident in much of Lane's work and is a reminder of the economic prosperity that cotton brought to the area in the early 20th century. The house remained in the Flowers family until it was sold in 1957. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1998