John and Ettie Mayfield House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm going to tell it to you. In the little Bell County town of Holland, there stands a house that a man named John Henry Mayfield built the right way, the first time, and it has been standin ever since. Let me walk you through it.

John Henry Mayfield was born in 1865, and his wife, Ettie Monroe Alsobrook, came into this world in 1869. Together they raised three daughters, and around 1908 the whole family pulled up stakes and moved to Holland, where John Mayfield set himself up in a serious line of work. He owned and operated a local cotton gin.

Now, a cotton gin in a Texas farming community is not a small thing. That's the heartbeat of the harvest, and Mayfield was the man running it. But a man with that kind of standing in a town needs a house to match, and in 1914, he made it happen.

He handed the job to local contractors Frank Wood and Sons, and those gentlemen did not disappoint. What they built was a Craftsman-influenced Prairie School building, and that description alone ought to slow you down a little. This is a house with emphasized horizontal lines, a wraparound porch, a double gallery, and fine interior woodwork and craftsmanship that people are still talking about.

It is the kind of house that says something about the people who lived inside it. John Henry Mayfield lived until 1954. Ettie Monroe Alsobrook Mayfield lived until 1957.

They saw a lot of Texas from that wraparound porch. And Frank Wood and Sons built it to outlast them both.

What the marker says

This was the home of John Henry Mayfield (1865-1954), his wife Ettie Monroe Alsobrook (1869-1957) and their three daughters. The Mayfields moved to Holland about 1908 where Mr. Mayfield owned and operated a local cotton gin. Local contractors Frank Wood & Sons built this house in 1914. This Craftsman-influenced Prairie School building features emphasized horizontal lines, a wraparound porch, double gallery, and fine interior woodwork and craftsmanship. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1995