Old Davenport Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, out on the Uvalde County roads. Picture a one-room log house sitting a mile north of the Dry Frio, built in the days when Lipan-Apache raids were a real and present fact of life on this frontier, and when outlaws were thick enough in these hills that building a home out here took something more than ambition. That was the world that cabin was born into.

Whoever that early settler was, he planted his one room of logs in rough country and made it stand. Then along came L. C.

Davenport, known to folks around here as Clabe, and he moved to this place about 1884. Now Clabe had a family of twelve, and you do not fit a family of twelve into a single log room without some serious renegotiating with the floorplan. So he got to work.

A second log room went up. A hall connected things. Stone rooms rose off the rear.

The old cabin grew the way a family does, one addition at a time, stretching itself out to hold everybody. And then Clabe Davenport prospered, the way a cattleman can when the land and the work line up right, and he built himself a proper frame home. But here is the thing about that old original cabin.

It did not retire. It did not sit empty gathering dust. It went right on working, serving as the kitchen, the dining room, the guest rooms.

The heart of the place, still beating, long after the frontier that shaped it had passed into memory. Some buildings just refuse to be done.

What the marker says

Originally an early settler's 1-room log house on the Dry Frio (1 mi. N), built in era of Lipan-Apache raids and infestation of this frontier by outlaws. Enlarged for his family of 12 by L. C. ("Clabe") Davenport, who moved here about 1884. Added were a second log room, a hall, stone rooms on rear. After cattleman Davenport prospered and built a frame home, the old cabin still was used as kitchen, dining room and guest rooms. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967.