Millermore

Duane's take

The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the man passin' it along — here's the story of Millermore. William Brown Miller was born in 1807, and by the time most men are settlin' into their routines, he was pullin' up stakes and movin' his entire family from Missouri to Texas. That was 1847.

He had the kind of ambition that doesn't rest long, because just eight years later, in 1855, he broke ground on a house on his farm east of Dallas. He wasn't in any hurry about it either — that house took him until 1862 to build. Seven years.

You don't spend seven years on something unless you mean for it to last. And last it did. Now, William Brown Miller lived to be ninety-two years old — born 1807, died 1899 — so he had plenty of time to see what that house would become.

He had at least twelve children along the way, and it's that twelfth child who becomes the heart of this story. Her name was Minera. Born in 1865, she would go on to live all the way to 1960 — ninety-five years of living, nearly a century of her own.

When she inherited the house, she gave it a name: Millermore. Simple, dignified, and carrying the family name forward like a flagpole planted in good soil. Minera's husband was Barry Miller — born 1864, died 1933 — and he was no small figure in Texas history.

Barry Miller served as a Lieutenant Governor of Texas. So that house east of Dallas wasn't just a family home; it was the kind of place where serious Texas business likely followed people through the front door. And then there was the next generation.

Living within those same walls was their daughter, Evelyn Miller Crowell, who grew up to become an author. Her book was called A Texas Childhood. Makes you wonder what she was remembering when she sat down to write it.

But here's where the story takes a turn that'll make you hold your breath just a little. In 1966 — six years after Minera herself had passed — the house was dismantled. Taken apart piece by piece.

You might think that was the end of it. You'd be wrong. Because in the 1970s, Millermore was reconstructed.

Put back together. That house William Brown Miller spent seven years building, that Minera named, that a Lieutenant Governor called home, that an author drew her childhood from — it refused to disappear. Some things, it turns out, are just built too well to let go.

What the marker says

William Brown Miller (1807 - 1899) moved from Missouri to Texas in 1847 with his family. In 1855-62 he built this house on his farm east of Dallas. His twelfth child, Minera (1865 - 1960), inherited the house and named it Millermore. Her husband, Barry Miller (1864 - 1933), was a Lieutenant Governor of Texas. Herein lived also their daughter, Evelyn Miller Crowell, author of "A Texas Childhood." The house was dismantled in 1966 and reconstructed here in the 1970s. RTHL 1962