Lumpkin-Woodruff House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, if you were passing through Meridian, Texas, and you happened to glance at a certain corner and spot an octagonal tower rising up proud against the sky, well, you'd be looking at a place that has a story worth slowing down for. This is the Lumpkin-Woodruff House, and it starts, as so many Texas stories do, with somebody coming from somewhere else.

James J. Lumpkin was born in South Carolina in 1852, and by 1878 he had made his way to Meridian. He didn't arrive empty-handed in terms of ambition.

He set up a medical practice, he established a pharmacy, and he became a prominent landowner. That's not a bad start for a man finding his footing in a new town. Then he married Ida Etoile Fuller, whose father, Moses W.

Fuller, born in 1830 and gone by 1868, had been a successful Meridian businessman. So James wasn't just building a life here. He was weaving himself into the fabric of a place that already had roots.

Together, James and Ida Etoile became civic leaders and benefactors of Meridian. The kind of people a town points to with quiet pride. And in 1898, they built the house.

That octagonal corner tower you see today, that's the original Eastlake style talking to you across more than a century. The Lumpkins' home became a center of social life and activities, the sort of place where the town gathered and things happened. After their deaths, the residence passed to Frank Woodruff, Mrs.

Lumpkin's cousin, and that's how a house carries two names into history. One family built it. Another kept it standing.

What the marker says

South Carolina native James J. Lumpkin (b. 1852) settled in Meridian in 1878. He established a medical practice and pharmacy, and was a prominent landowner. He married Ida Etoile (Fuller) (d. 1954), daughter of Moses W. Fuller (1830-1868), a successful Meridian businessman, and they became civic leaders and benefactors of the town. The Lumpkins' home, built in 1898, was a center of social life and activities. After their deaths, Frank Woodruff, Mrs. Lumpkin's cousin, owned the residence. The octagonal corner tower reflects the original Eastlake style of the structure. (1982)