DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Kennedy-Peterson House in Kerr County. Now settle in, because this one starts with a man racing the clock — and ends with a family that kept giving long after they were gone. The house you're looking at was built in 1914, and it was built for a man who had earned just about every honor Texas could hand him.
Austin Milton Kennedy had served seven terms as a Texas State Representative and risen all the way to Speaker of the House. Seven terms. Speaker.
That is not a small life. But by 1914, Kennedy wasn't coming to Kerrville to celebrate — he came here to fight tuberculosis, hoping the Hill Country air might give him a fighting chance. The house went up, he moved in, and then — three months.
That is all he got. Austin Milton Kennedy died on July 19, 1914, in the very home that had been built for him that same year. Born in 1866, gone that July.
The house stood quiet after that, holding whatever stories those walls hold. Then, in 1919, a rancher and businessman named Sid Peterson arrived with his wife Myrta — she was a Goss before she married him — and they made it their own. Sid Peterson, born in 1868, and Myrta, born in 1881, put down roots here the way people do when they intend to matter to a place.
And matter they did. The Peterson family became well-known across the Hill Country, and they didn't keep that standing to themselves. In 1944, they established a charitable foundation to help local students and folks in need.
Then in 1949 came the Sid Peterson Memorial Hospital. Myrta lived on until 1951, long enough to see what the family had built take real shape in this community. Now the house itself — it's worth slowing down for.
Victorian Free Classic style, with a wrap-around porch that just wraps around and says, come sit a while. Gabled roof, original columns, the original beveled glass door still catching the light the way it did in 1914, and pine wood drop siding that has outlasted nearly everyone who ever walked through that door. Two families, one house, and a story that keeps going.
That's the Kennedy-Peterson House.
What the marker says
This home was built in 1914 for seven-term Texas State Representative and Speaker of the House Austin Milton Kennedy (1866-1914), who moved here to assist with his struggles with tuberculosis. Kennedy lived here only three months and died on July 19, 1914. Rancher and businessman Sid Peterson (1868-1939) and his wife, Myrta (Goss) Peterson (1881-1951), purchased the house in 1919. Well-known in the Hill Country, the Peterson family established a charitable foundation in 1944 to help local students and those in need and the Sid Peterson Memorial Hospital in 1949. Built in Victorian Free Classic style, the house features a large wrap-around porch, gabled roof, original columns, original beveled glass door and pine wood drop siding. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 2017