DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, the International and Great Northern Railroad line reaching Palestine — that was the kind of event that rearranged people's lives. Set 'em in motion.
And two brothers named A. B. and Dan Hodges, over in Tennessee Colony settlement, felt that pull. They moved toward that railroad town and planted themselves there, and before long they were leading merchants.
That's the marker's word — leading. Not scraping by, not getting along fine. Leading.
These Hodges boys knew what they were doing. That was the 1870s. Give it another couple of decades, and Dan Hodges decides to build something that would last.
In 1895, he put up this house — for his wife Margaret Sue, born a Jackson, and for their five children. Five. He wasn't thinking small.
The style was Queen Anne, and if you know anything about late Victorian architecture, you know that means a house with something to say. Layers to it. Details you don't forget.
The marker calls it a good example of Queen Anne style residences of the late Victorian era, and standing here, it's hard to argue. Now, time moves on, as time insists on doing. The house changed hands.
In 1959, a man named William Gray Darsey, Jr., came into the picture — a leader in the area oil industry — and he purchased the place. Then he did something that doesn't always happen with old houses: he restored it. He preserved it.
The marker makes sure you know that. So what you're looking at right now is a house built in 1895, still standing on the strength of the man who built it and the man who refused to let it go.
What the marker says
In the 1870s, after the International & Great Northern Railroad line reached Palestine, brothers A. B. and Dan Hodges moved here from Tennessee Colony settlement and became leading merchants. This house was built in 1895 by Dan Hodges for his wife Margaret Sue (Jackson) and their five children. A good example of Queen Anne style residences of the late Victorian era, the house was purchased in 1959 by William Gray Darsey, Jr., (who restored and preserved it) a leader in the area oil industry. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1973