Gen. Hal C. Horton Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little room to breathe. There's a house sitting in Greenville, Hunt County, that's got more layers to it than the bricks it's made of. And it was the first two-story brick house in all of Greenville.

The first one. Let that settle. Every house before it was one story, and then somebody said, no, we're going up.

That somebody was the Will N. Harrisons, prominent pioneers, and they had this place erected between 1885 and 1887 in what the marker calls typical Victorian style. Now, typical or not, it was anything but ordinary for Greenville at the time.

The contractor who built it was a man known as H. C. Jack Horton.

And here's where the story starts to fold back on itself in a way that'll make you smile. Jack Horton made the very bricks for that house. Made them himself.

And where did he make them? Out at a place called Puddin' Hill. Now I'm not going to pretend that name doesn't deserve a moment of appreciation, because it does.

Puddin' Hill. That land had been in the Horton family since 1846, when they first settled it. Jack Horton, the contractor, the brick-maker, the man who built Greenville's first two-story brick house with bricks he pulled from his own family's land.

That is a man doing the whole job from the ground up. Now fast forward to 1929. The house had changed hands over the years, but it was about to come back into the orbit of the very family whose hands had shaped it.

Hal C. Horton, son of that same Jack Horton, Colonel in the United States Army and General in the National Guard, and Mrs. Horton, they bought the house.

Then they remodeled it. And when they did, they reached back out to Puddin' Hill one more time, using walnut from that same Horton family farm that had been in the family since 1846. The land that gave the bricks.

The land that gave the walnut. The land that, by the time of this marker, was owned by Hal C. Horton himself.

Some stories travel far and wide. This one kept coming home.

What the marker says

First two-story brick house in Greenville. Erected in 1885-1887 in typical Victorian style. Built by the Will N. Harrisons, prominent pioneers. Contractor H. C. "Jack" Horton (father of Gen. Horton) made the brick at "Puddin' Hill." That land, settled 1846 by Horton family, is now owned by Hal C. Horton, Colonel in U. S. Army and General in National Guard. He and Mrs. Horton bought and remodeled house, 1929, using walnut from "Puddin' Hill" farm. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1969