Northcutt House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Back in 1902, a man named Reverend W. B.

Allen put up a house in Longview, Texas. Now, he didn't build it for himself. He built it for a man named Dr.

William Davis Northcutt, and that right there sets the tone for the whole story, because Dr. Northcutt was not a man who did things small. Born in 1861, gone in 1931, and in between those two years he packed in enough civic life to make a town sit up straight.

Prominent physician. Mayor of Longview, and not just once. Four terms.

Four. The kind of man a city keeps calling back to the job. Dr.

Northcutt threw himself into the development of the area with what the marker calls active civic leadership, and you get the sense that phrase is doing a lot of quiet heavy lifting. Now, about that house. Reverend Allen built it in the Queen Anne style, and if you know anything about Queen Anne, you know it does not whisper.

It announces. Two levels of wraparound veranda, the kind that wraps a house like it's giving it a long embrace. And fishscale shingling, those overlapping fan-shaped shingles that catch the light and make a wall look almost alive.

This was not a house that blended in. After Dr. Northcutt died in 1931, the residence stayed in the family.

Some houses pass through a dozen hands and lose every trace of the people who lived in them. This one held on. And there it stands today in Gregg County, still wearing its two-level veranda, still showing off those fishscale shingles, still carrying the name of the doctor who called it home.

What the marker says

This residence was constructed in 1902 by the Rev. W. B. Allen for Dr. William Davis Northcutt (1861-1931). A prominent Longview physician and mayor of the city for four terms, Dr. Northcutt played a vital role in the development of the area through his active civic leadership. The Queen Anne style of his home features an elaborate two-level wraparound veranda and fishscale shingling. After Dr. Northcutt's death, the residence remained in the family. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982