Goodman Home, 1857

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The year is 1857, and a man named Gallatin Smith is putting up a house in Smith County. He calls it Bonnie Castle.

Now, whether that name was a touch of grand ambition or just plain poetry, the marker doesn't say, but Bonnie Castle it was. Then the war comes and goes, and by 1866 the place changes hands. Dr.

S. A. Goodman buys it.

And that's where the story of this house really takes root. The Goodman name would carry this property forward for the better part of a century. Dr.

Goodman's son, Major W. J. Goodman, surgeon in the 13th Texas Infantry, C.

S. A., takes the house and enlarges it. A military man, a surgeon, the kind of figure who leaves a mark on a place.

Then the years roll on, and eventually the house passes to the major's last survivor, a woman named Mrs. Sallie Goodman LeGrand. She's the one who takes the old walls in hand again in the nineteen twenties and remodels the whole thing.

The last of her line, and she's still tending to it. In 1939 she wills the home to the city of Tyler. Just gives it.

The city of Tyler. And the story doesn't stop there. By 1960, the Smith County Historical Society Museum had made its home inside those walls.

Then in 1964, the Junior League of Tyler restores it. Bonnie Castle, begun by Gallatin Smith, carried by the Goodmans, willed to a city, and tended to this day. Some houses just refuse to be forgotten.

What the marker says

Begun by Gallatin Smith, as "Bonnie Castle." Bought, 1866, by Dr. S. A. Goodman. Enlarged by his son, Major W. J. Goodman, surgeon in 13th Texas Infantry, C. S. A. Remodeled in 1920s by Mrs. Sallie Goodman LeGrand, the major's last survivor. Willed to city of Tyler, 1939. Smith County Historical Society Museum housed here since 1960. Restored 1964 by Junior League of Tyler.