DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this place — and friend, it's a story worth pulling over for. The name on the stone out front says O. Henry, but the birth certificate said William Sydney Porter, born September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Now, how a man gets from Greensboro to legend — that's the part I want to walk you through. Porter came to Texas in 1882, settled in for a spell on a ranch near Cotulla, and then made his way to Austin in 1884. Austin suited him, it seems, because the man threw himself into about everything the city had to offer.
He worked as a pharmacist. He worked as a musician. He worked as a draftsman.
He worked as a bank teller. You get the sense William Sydney Porter was a man who could not sit still — or maybe a man still trying to figure out what he was. Turns out, what he was, was a writer.
His first nationally published short story appeared in 1897. Now here's where the story gets a weight to it. Porter spent three years in prison, and it was during those three years that he began writing under the name O.
Henry. That name — O. Henry — would go on to mean something to readers around the world.
From 1902 to 1910, he published 381 stories out of New York, and the fame those stories earned him crossed oceans. His collected works were translated into ten languages. Ten.
And the house you may be standing near right now — this mid-1890s home where Porter lived with his wife Athol and their daughter — opened as a museum in 1934. Same walls. Same Austin air.
The man wrote under a borrowed name and still managed to make it immortal. You can't make that up. Lord knows O.
Henry would've tried anyway.
What the marker says
(William Sydney Porter, Sept. 11, 1862 - June 5, 1910) Born in Greensboro, N.C., moved to Texas in 1882, and lived on a ranch near Cotulla. Came to Austin in 1884, and in addition to writing, worked as a pharmacist, musician, draftsman, and bank teller. His first nationally published short story appeared in 1897. Porter began writing under the name O. Henry during three years spent in prison. The 381 stories published while in New York, 1902-10, won him international fame. O. Henry's collected works have been translated into 10 languages. This mid-1890s home of Porter, his wife Athol, and their daughter, opened as a museum in 1934. (1974)