Gibbs-Powell House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Picture a house that has been standing in Walker County since 1862. That's not a misprint.

Eighteen sixty-two. While the whole country was tearing itself apart, somebody was out here laying foundation and raising columns, building a Greek revival house for the Thomas Gibbs family. Square porch columns.

A central entry with a transom and sidelights catching whatever light the day had to offer. There's a quiet confidence in a house like that, a sense that it expects to outlast whatever comes next. And it did.

The Gibbs family called it home, and the house settled into its purpose. Then came the 1880s and the 1890s, and the place took a turn toward the practical. Rent house for a while.

Student housing after that. Not exactly the grand domestic life it was built for, but the house endured. It held its shape.

Then, in 1897, Judge Ben Powell the Second came along and purchased the property. The years kept passing. Things were altered here and there, as things tend to be.

But here is the part that separates a well-built house from just any old building. Through all of it, through the tenants and the students and the judge and every set of hands that came after, the house never lost its original character. Those square columns still stood.

That transom, those sidelights, still framing the front door like they had something to say. And in 1984, the Gibbs-Powell House finally found the role that suited it best. It became a local history museum.

A house that spent over a century holding family stories decided it was time to hold everyone's.

What the marker says

Built in 1862, this Greek revival house was originally the home of the Thomas Gibbs Family. Used briefly as a rent house and for student housing in the 1880s and 1890s, it was purchased by Judge Ben Powell, II, in 1897. Although altered over the years, the house retains its original character and exhibits stylistic features such as square porch columns and a central entry with transom and sidelights. It became a local history museum in 1984.