DUANE
Get the App
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it right along to you. Back in 1870, a man named S. A.
Pool set himself up on the river bank in a serious way. Not just a house, mind you. A store.
A cotton gin. A full operation, right there on the north side of the Bosque, in the town of Valley Mills as it stood at the time. He built it all in stone, and that stone came from nearby Fitzhugh Hill.
So whatever Pool was building, he was building it to last. And he was right about that, even if the world around it would not stay still. Then came Robert A.
Tibbs, a Mississippi Civil War veteran, who bought the house in 1891. The place passed hands again in 1926, when Anselm Tibbs acquired it. Anselm, born in 1886 and gone in 1967, made his mark on the old house too.
He removed the original Greek Revival portico and made other changes. So the house that stands today has been shaped by more than one set of hands over more than one generation. Now here is where the story turns a little sideways.
The Santa Fe Railroad was built, and when it was, the town of Valley Mills picked up and moved south of the river. The whole town shifted. And as a consequence of that move, the house that S.
A. Pool built in 1870 on what used to be the north side of things ended up being the oldest house in the present town, the new Valley Mills, sitting right there on the south side where the railroad brought everything to settle. A stone house built to anchor one version of a town ended up outlasting that town entirely, and becoming the foundation of the next one.
What the marker says
S. A. Pool built this residence, a store, and a cotton gin on the river bank in 1870, when the town of Valley Mills stood on the north side of the Bosque. The building stone came from nearby Fitzhugh Hill. Robert A. Tibbs, a Mississippi Civil War veteran, bought the house in 1891. After acquiring it in 1926, Anselm Tibbs (1886-1967) removed the original Greek Revival portico and made other changes. The town of Valley Mills moved south of the river when the Santa Fe Railroad was built. As a consequence, this is the oldest house in the present, or "new" town. (1978)