Galloways' Old Home Place

Duane's take

Here's how the marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Way out in Dallas County, there's a place they call Galloways' Old Home Place, and that name ain't just sentiment, that's a statement of fact going back well over a century. Benjamin Franklin Galloway, Confederate veteran, born 1833, died 1912, came out of Tennessee with his wife Eliza; she was a Fletcher before she was a Galloway; and the two of them looked at the land and decided this was where they'd put down roots.

Not tomorrow, not someday. They got to work. Between 1875 and 1876, Benjamin and Eliza built the first three rooms.

Just three rooms, but three rooms is a house, and a house is a beginning. Then 1888 rolls around, and Benjamin Galloway, apparently a man who believed in finishing what he started, enlarged the place. Added to what was already standing, made it more.

By the time he was done, it wasn't just a farmhouse anymore; it was a homeplace, capital H. Now here's what makes this story land a little differently than most. Benjamin Franklin Galloway lived to 1912.

Eliza had come all the way from Tennessee. They built something with their hands. And somewhere down the line (one generation, then another, then another, then a fourth) somebody in that family kept looking at those walls and deciding they were worth keeping.

Four generations, and the home still stands. Some things you build for yourself. Some things, turns out, you build for everybody who comes after you.

What the marker says

Farmhouse of Confederate veteran Benjamin Franklin Galloway (1833 - 1912) and wife Eliza (Fletcher), who came from Tennessee. They built first three rooms, 1875-76; Galloway enlarged house, 1888. Fourth generation of the family now preserves home. RTHL - 1973