John W. Bull Stone House

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of the John W. Bull Stone House. Now, if you're going to build a home in Hood County, Texas, you might as well build it to last.

And John W. Bull, born in Tennessee in 1818, came to Texas in 1853; that man understood something about permanence. He preempted this land in 1861, which means he staked his claim out here when the country itself was coming apart at the seams.

And the view from that land? It looks right out toward Comanche Peak, an Indian caucus site. Every single morning, John W.

Bull woke up with that peak on the horizon. Whatever that meant to him, he stayed. Then comes January of 1865, and Bull is riding out to take part in the Dove Creek Indian battle, one of the storied, famed engagements of that era.

He came back. He kept the land. Now, in 1871, the land grant was finally approved; official, on paper, his.

And John W. Bull decided it was time to build something worthy of that permanence. He hired a crew under a mason by the name of Pat Gannon, and they quarried the stone right out of a nearby hill.

No shipping it in, no making do; they cut the rock from the earth just down the slope and hauled it up to build these walls. And when they got to the chimney, somebody (maybe Gannon himself, maybe Bull standing right there watching) took a chisel and cut a date into the stone. March 17, 1872.

It's still there. One of the earliest masonry homes in the whole area, raised by a Tennessee-born man who lived from 1818 to 1898, who came to Texas, held on through everything this country threw at him, and then said: I am going to build my house out of this hill, and I am going to sign it in stone. Hard to argue with that kind of answer.

What the marker says

One of earliest masonry homes in area; built in view of indian caucus site, Comanche Peak. John W. Bull (1818-98), born in Tennessee, came to Texas in 1853; preempted land here, 1861; in Jan. 1865 participated in the famed Dove Creek Indian battle. After land grant was approved (1871), Bull hired crew under mason Pat Gannon to build this house of stone quarried from nearby hill. Chiseled in chimney is the date "March 17, 1872". Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1970