Hart House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm taking it from there. Somewhere in Lampasas County, not long after the guns of the Civil War went quiet, somebody put up a building. Two rooms.

Two stories. That was it, that was the whole enterprise, a stagecoach stand and a hotel rolled into one modest frame. You can almost picture the coach pulling in, the horses blowing steam, the driver hollering for somebody to come take a bag.

That little two-room, two-story place was the answer to that holler. Now, most buildings are content to be one thing and stay that way. This one had other ideas.

Come the 1870s, Lampasas had drawn a reputation as a health resort, people coming from who knows where to take the local waters, and the Hart House, well, it grew to meet them. Twice. Enlarged twice in that same decade, just to keep up with the visitors rolling in.

A tannery at some point too, because apparently two jobs weren't enough. And through all of it, Sulphur Creek had its say. Two floods.

Not one, two, and the building is still standing to tell the tale. Some structures outlast their first purpose, their second, even their third. The Hart House just kept adding chapters.

What the marker says

Built soon after Civil War. At first was 2-room, 2-story stagecoach stand and hotel. During 1870's was enlarged twice, to board visitors of the local health resort. Also has been a tannery, and has survived two floods of Sulphur Creek. (1966)