Robert E. Lee House

Duane's take

Now, I'm retelling this one straight from the official historical marker, so let's see what it has to say. Out here in Starr County, there's a house that looks out over a steamboat dock on the Rio Grande, with the whole landscape of northern Mexico stretching out beyond it. Take a moment to picture that view: the river running below, Mexico spread wide on the other side, and inside those walls, something that tells you this was no ordinary frontier dwelling.

The main rooms were walled with military maps of this very locality. Not paintings. Not portraits.

Maps. The kind of thing a man puts up when he's not admiring the scenery; he's studying it. And the man doing that studying was Colonel Robert E.

Lee, U.S. Army Commandant in Texas, who used this place as his field quarters in 1860. You stand in a room like that, maps on every wall, the Rio Grande just outside, northern Mexico laid out before you, and you get a sense of the weight that came with that post.

History has a way of settling into the walls of a place, and this house held more than its share.

What the marker says

Overlooked steamboat dock on Rio Grande, landscape of northern Mexico. Main rooms were walled with military maps of this locality. Used as field quarters by Col. Robert E. Lee, U.S. Army Commandant in Texas, 1860. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965