DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say about the Poole-Parker House, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, if you've spent any time wandering the older neighborhoods of Galveston, you know that the island has a way of holding onto its history — sometimes stubbornly, sometimes gracefully. The Poole-Parker House is the graceful kind.
It starts, as a lot of good Texas stories do, with a land deal. A man named W. G.
Boepple bought a parcel from Valentine Poole — a local cattle dealer, the kind of man who knew the value of a good piece of ground — and sometime in the 1860s, Boepple built himself a Greek revival cottage on it. Clean lines, classical proportions. A little formal for the Texas coast, maybe, but that's the thing about Greek revival: it has a way of looking like it belongs wherever it stands.
Here's the twist that makes you smile a little. By 1872, Valentine Poole had bought that very same property back. The man who sold the land ended up owning the house built on it.
You can't plan that kind of symmetry. But the house wasn't done changing hands. In 1886 it was sold to the estate of Willard B.
Richardson — editor of the Galveston News. Now that's a name with some weight to it. After Richardson, the property passed into the care of his daughter Caroline.
She was the wife of Dr. H. P.
Cooke, who was no small figure himself: city health officer and dean of the state medical branch right there in Galveston. Caroline managed the property, kept it in the family's orbit, kept it standing. And then, in 1935, John A. and Emma Jeanne Parker bought the house, and their name joined the story permanently — right there in the title it carries to this day.
The Poole-Parker House. A cattle dealer, a newspaper editor, a physician, and a Parker. Every owner left a mark, and the cottage just kept standing through all of it, cool and classical, doing what Greek revival cottages do best — enduring.
What the marker says
This Greek revival cottage was built in the 1860s by W. G. Boepple on land he bought from Valentine Poole, a local cattle dealer who again became the owner in 1872. In 1886 the home was sold to the estate of "Galveston News" editor Willard B. Richardson. Later his daughter caroline managed the property. She was the wife of Dr. H. P. Cooke, city health officer and dean of the state medical branch here. In 1935 the house was sold to John A. and Emma Jeanne Parker. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980