Old Rock House

Duane's take

The official marker tells this one, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Now, Wheeler County, Texas. Somewhere around 1875.

Picture the Panhandle plains, wide and raw and barely touched by anything you'd call civilization. Across the creek from a place called Hidetown, a buffalo hunters' post, somebody decided it was time to build something that would last. They called it the Old Rock House, and the name tells you everything.

No timber framed up quick and hoped for the best. Rock. Quarried nearby, hauled in, set by hand.

The first substantial home in all of Wheeler County. It was built for Henry Fleming, the first sheriff of Wheeler County. Think about that title for a moment.

The first. Which means before him, there wasn't one. And before this house, there wasn't much of anything either.

The house itself was built in an ell shape, four rooms arranged in that classic L, each room exactly fourteen feet square. Fourteen by fourteen. In a place where most folks were sleeping in dugouts or hide tents, this thing was practically a palace.

And people treated it like one. They considered it a mansion. Out there, in that country, at that time, it was.

And it wasn't just a home. Wheeler County didn't have a courthouse yet, so the Old Rock House stepped in and served the county until one could be built. Four fourteen-foot-square rooms of quarried stone, doing the work of government, standing across the creek from Hidetown while the whole region was still finding its footing.

First sheriff. First substantial home. First seat of county business.

Some buildings carry a county on their shoulders before the county even knows what it is. The Old Rock House was that kind of building.

What the marker says

First substantial home in Wheeler County, built across creek from Hidetown, buffalo hunters' post, about 1875 for first sheriff Henry Fleming. Rock quarried nearby. Ell of four 14 foot square rooms. Was considered a mansion. Served the county until a courthouse could be built. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964