Lewis-Bivins House

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Lewis-Bivins House in Longview, Gregg County. Now, every good house has a story, and this one's got layers. It starts with a local merchant named B.

F. Lewis and his wife, E. A.

Lewis, who had this place constructed in 1885 or 1895. The marker gives us both dates, and it doesn't pick a winner, so neither will I. What we do know is that the Lewises built something worth keeping.

A Victorian dwelling, right there in Longview, dressed up with cornice returns and spindlework porch balusters and decorative porch post brackets. A simple folk form with Queen Anne accents. In other words, it had good bones and a little flair.

Then comes 1905, and the Lewises sell their home to a man named James Knox Bivins. Confederate veteran. Lumberman.

And here's the detail that makes you stop and think for a second. When Bivins got that deed in hand, he didn't keep it for himself. He presented it to his wife, Viola, whose maiden name was Cobb, as a gift.

The whole house. A gift. The Bivins family moved to Longview to be close to James Knox's sawmill operating over in the nearby Talley community, so the location made sense.

But then the years kept moving, the way years do. Fast forward to 1941, and it's Viola Bivins who steps into the story on her own terms. She restored the structure, using an inheritance from her father.

A woman preserving a home that her husband once gave her as a gift, now sustained by her own family's legacy. That's a quiet kind of poetry right there. And the work held.

The Lewis-Bivins House stands today as one of the last Victorian dwellings in Longview, its design remaining largely intact. All those spindlework balusters and decorative brackets, still doing their job, still telling anybody who looks that somebody, a long time ago, built this place to last.

What the marker says

This house was constructed in 1885 or 1895 for local merchant B. F. Lewis and his wife, E. A. Lewis. In 1905 the Lewises sold their home to James Knox Bivins, a Confederate veteran and lumberman, who presented the deed to his wife Viola (Cobb) as a gift. The Bivins family moved to Longview to be close to his sawmill in the nearby Talley community. Viola Bivins restored the structure in 1941 with an inheritance from her father. The Lewis-Bivins house is among the last Victorian dwellings in Longview. The structure exhibits mixed folk Victorian elements with cornice returns, spindlework porch balusters and decorative porch post brackets. A simple folk form with Queen Anne accents, the design remains largely intact. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1999