DUANE
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Duane's take
The official marker's the authority here, and I'm just the one bringin' it to life. Now, out in Donley County, there stands a house with a story that moves through more hands than a good card deck at a Saturday night table. It starts in 1904, when local merchants J.
G. and F. D. Martin built the place.
From the ground up, timbers set, a real house on real Texas earth. Then along comes rancher James M. Calhoun, who owned the property from 1910 to 1914.
Four years, and then the deed moved on, the way deeds tend to do out here. Cattleman Robert H. Muir picked it up in 1914 and held it through 1926.
Twelve years of cattle country living under that roof. But here's where the house finds the name it keeps to this day. In 1926, Muir sold the residence to one Sam W.
Lowe. Now, Sam Lowe was not a man you could summarize quickly. College educator.
Merchant. Stock farmer. Civic leader.
Church leader. And if that weren't enough, he served three terms as Donley County judge. Three terms.
The kind of man a community builds itself around. Sam Lowe died in 1968. But the house, well, it wasn't done with the Lowe family yet.
His wife Lilac, his wife of fifty-three years, she stayed right there, holding the place together, until 1981. Fifty-three years beside the same man, and then thirteen more years keeping the home he left behind. Some houses are just wood and nails.
This one is something else entirely.
What the marker says
Local merchants J. G. and F. D. Martin built this house in 1904. Rancher James M. Calhoun owned the property from 1910 to 1914 and cattleman Robert H. Muir from 1914 to 1926. Muir sold the residence in 1926 to Sam W. Lowe, a college educator, merchant, stock farmer, and civic and church leader who served three terms as Donley County judge. Lowe died in 1968, but his wife of 53 years, Lilac, continued to occupy the house until 1981. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1982