George Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I tell it back to you. Somewhere in Bee County, there stands a house that carries more than a century of Texas in its bones. The George Home.

And the story of how it came to be reaches back further than the house itself. Further back, even, than the man who built it. It reaches all the way to a New Yorker who decided Texas needed him.

Major J.H. Wood came down from New York to join the Texas War for Independence. Now that is a long way to travel on a conviction.

And whatever he found when he got here, he stayed. He built something lasting in this country, a Texas cattle empire, and the land he claimed became the foundation of what came after. When his daughter Julia inherited that land, she and her husband Will H.

George set to building. The year was 1890. They didn't start from scratch, exactly.

They pulled materials from an early house already standing on the property, the old giving way to the new, but never really leaving. What they raised on that ground was a cottage, raised cottage architecture to be precise, with an interior that was anything but plain. Elegantly detailed woodwork, the kind that tells you someone cared about the inside as much as the outside.

Ten years on, in 1900, they remodeled it. Refined it. And by the turn of the century, the George Home had become a gathering place.

Social functions, cultural functions, the kind of evenings that people in Bee County would have remembered and talked about for years. The house held all of it. By the time this marker was set down in 1966, the present owner was listed as Mrs.

Mary M. Welder, a Wood descendant. Major Wood's line, still on the land he came so far to claim.

Some roots, once planted, just don't let go.

What the marker says

Built in 1890 by Will H. and Julia George of materials from early house on land inherited from her father, Maj. J.H. Wood (Texas Cattle Empire Builder) who came from New York to join Texas War for Independence. Remodeled in 1900, house is raised cottage architecture andhas elegantly detailed interior woodwork. Many social and cultural functions were held here at turn of century. Present owner is Mrs. Mary M. Welder, a wood descendant.