J. M. Boren Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll let the story do the talking. Way out in Garza County, in the year 1908, a man named J. M.

Boren decided to build himself a home. Now, that might not sound like front-page news until you hear this: every stick of lumber that went into that house was hauled seventy-five miles to get there. Seventy-five miles, over country that did not exactly roll out a welcome mat for wagons.

But Boren was not the kind of man who let distance have the last word. He was Garza County's first county judge, a rancher, a bank director, a civic leader. When a place needed somebody to stand at the front of the room and get things done, J.

M. Boren was already standing there. And that house he built with all that hard-won lumber?

It became something more than four walls and a roof. The hospitality inside those walls was well known to area pioneers and to cowboys riding into town, the kind of place where you knew the door would open and something decent was waiting on the other side. Seventy-five miles of hauling, and what came out of it was a home that a whole corner of Texas remembered.

Some things are worth the trip.

What the marker says

Built in 1908 of lumber hauled 75 miles. Boren was first county judge, a rancher, bank director, civic leader. Hospitality of home was well known to area pioneers and cowboys visiting town. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967.