P. B. Maxey Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Polk County, there's a house that has been keeping secrets and keeping family for a long, long time. The P.

B. Maxey Home. And the story starts the way the best Texas stories do, with a man, a piece of land, and something built to last.

In the early 1860s, P. B. Maxey, a farmer and rancher, set out to build himself a home on a 160-acre tract.

Now, he wasn't cutting corners. This wasn't a toss-it-up-and-hope situation. Maxey used pine logs.

He used pegs. He used square nails. And those shingles on the roof, hand-riven, meaning somebody split every last one of those by hand.

When it was done, the house had two rooms and a kitchen. Not a palace. But built with the kind of intention that tends to outlast palaces.

Here's where it gets interesting. That house, assembled in the early 1860s with pegs and hand labor and pine that came straight out of East Texas, was still standing in 1947 when the family remodeled it. And after the remodel, it was still in the Maxey family.

Still. The same family. The same 160 acres worth of roots.

Some houses are structures. This one is a statement.

What the marker says

Built early 1860s on a 160-acre tract by P. B. Maxey, farmer and rancher. Constructed of pine logs, using pegs, square nails, and hand-riven shingles, house had two rooms and a kitchen. Remodeled 1947, the home is still in Maxey family. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1968