Moore Log House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little color on the side. Somewhere along Rummel Creek, in the early 1930s, Edith L. Moore and her husband did something that folks in a hurry would never think to do.

They cut pine logs right off their own land, and they built themselves a house. Not ordered one, not hired one out. Built one.

With their hands, from their trees, in 1931 and 1932. Now that right there is a particular kind of stubbornness that Texas tends to reward. But here's where it gets good.

When it came time for a fireplace and chimney, they didn't go shopping. They went salvaging. Those stones, the sandstone curbstones, came out of downtown Houston itself.

Pulled right up from the streets. So every time a fire crackled in that hearth, it was the city of Houston keeping them warm, in a manner of speaking. They worked that land the way people used to work land, dairy farming and logging, drawing their livelihood from the same ground that gave them their walls and their roof.

Years passed. Decades passed. And Edith Moore, apparently not done making decisions that outlast her, willed the log house and 17.5 acres to the Houston Audubon Society in 1975.

Not sold. Willed. She wanted that homesite along Rummel Creek protected as a nature sanctuary, and she made sure it would be.

The pine logs are still standing. That's the kind of ending a house earns.

What the marker says

In 1931-32 Edith L. Moore and her husband built this house of pine logs they cut from their land. The stone fireplace and chimney were built of sandstone curbstones salvaged from downtown Houston. Dairy farming and logging provided their livelihood. To safeguard this homesite along Rummel Creek as a nature sanctuary, she willed the log house and 17.5 acres to the Houston Audubon Society in 1975.