McDaniel Family Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. You're rolling through Hill County now, and there's a house in Hubbard that's been standing since before most of this county could spell its own name. The McDaniel Family Home.

Late Victorian architecture, walnut and pine, tinted window glass catching the light just so. Banisters running along the porches and stairs, decorative columns, gables dressed up like they've got somewhere to be. This is not a house that was built in a hurry, and it was not built without purpose.

Now here's the part that makes this story worth telling. The year is 1882. The Cotton Belt railroad had only just extended its line from Tyler to Waco the year before, in 1881, and Hubbard was founded right along with that moment.

The town was barely finding its footing. And into that brand-new place, a man named Joe B. McDaniel, local merchant and banker, decided it was time to build one of the earliest fine houses the town would ever see.

He wasn't building it for himself, though. He built it for his widowed mother. Elizabeth Bonner McDaniel.

Mrs. William M. McDaniel.

A son building something lasting, something beautiful, for the woman who raised him, in a town that was still deciding what it wanted to be. Walnut and pine. Tinted glass.

Banisters going every direction a porch or a staircase could offer them. That house has been standing in Hubbard since 1882, and it is still standing right now, which tells you something about both the craftsmanship and the family behind it.

What the marker says

Late Victorian architecture. One of earliest fine houses in Hubbard, founded when the Cotton Belt railroad extended its line from Tyler to Waco in 1881. Structure is of walnut and pine. Ornamentation includes array of banisters on porches and stairs. Decorative columns and gables, tinted window glass. Built 1882 by Joe B. McDaniel, local merchant and banker, for his widowed mother, Elizabeth Bonner (Mrs. William M.) McDaniel. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1969