L. P. Smith House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, some houses just sit on their lots and mind their own business. But the L.

P. Smith House in Limestone County has been minding everybody else's business for a good long while, and it earned that right. Lewis Philip Smith, merchant and banker in Mexia, picked out this home site back in 1868 and paid four hundred dollars in gold for it.

Gold. Not paper, not a handshake. Gold.

That tells you something about the man before you even set foot on the porch. Then came 1876, and Lewis and his second wife, Mattie J. Beeson Smith, built the house that's still standing today.

Cedar shingle roof up top, cedar post foundations down below. Twelve-light windows letting in whatever light Limestone County was willing to offer. Old-fashioned weatherboard siding on the outside, six-inch board floors underfoot, and every last nail in that structure a square nail.

Square nails. The kind of detail you only notice when you're the kind of person who notices everything. Lewis Philip Smith was a Mason and a Methodist, and by all accounts a leader in the town of Mexia.

The marker doesn't overstate it. Leader. That word carries weight.

And then, in 1886, Lewis Philip Smith died. He was thirty-nine years old. The house he built with gold and cedar and square nails outlasted him by a long, long measure.

Six generations of the Smith family have lived within those weatherboard walls. Six generations. The same cedar roof, the same wide floors, the same windows counting out the light.

Some houses hold a family. This one held a whole line of them.

What the marker says

Built 1876 by Mexia merchant and banker Lewis Philip Smith and his second wife, Mattie J. Beeson Smith. Home site cost $400 in gold in 1868. House has cedar shingle roof, cedar post foundations; 12-light windows; old fashioned weatherboard siding; 6-inch board floors. Square nails used in structure. Smith, a Mason and Methodist, was a leader in the town; died at 39, in 1886. Six generations of the family have lived here. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967