DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Sam Wood Cabin, out there in Randall County. Now, some buildings just sit. And then there are buildings that have lived — really lived — and the Sam Wood Cabin is one of those.
Let's start with the man himself. Sam Wood. Indian Scout.
Union veteran of the Civil War. Buffalo hunter. The kind of résumé that makes you want to sit down and listen before he even gets to the good part.
And the good part is coming. In 1877 — ten years before his cabin even existed — Sam Wood was already making history in the Panhandle. His daughter got married at Fort Elliott, and that union went into the books as the first marriage ever recorded in the Panhandle.
The father of the bride at the very first one. Sam Wood. Then comes 1887.
Sam builds his cabin. And he builds it not in some thriving metropolis, mind you, but in a place called Hog Town. That's right.
Hog Town. A place that has since faded clean off the map — a ghost town now. But that cabin kept standin'.
And it had to stand up to some pressure, because at some point during an Indian scare, that single cabin became home to six families. Six. You think about the walls of a place holding that many people, that much fear, that much waiting — and you start to understand what a building can mean to the people inside it.
The cabin endured. And in 1954, somebody decided it deserved better than to slowly disappear into the Panhandle dust. It was moved.
It was restored. Brought back. From Hog Town to history.
That cabin has earned every year it's still standing.
What the marker says
Sam Wood cabin. Built 1887 at Hog Town (now a ghost town). Wood, an Indian Scout, Union veteran of Civil War, buffalo hunter, was father of bride in first marriage recorded in the Panhandle, at Fort Elliott in 1877. Cabin housed 6 families during an Indian scare. In 1954 it was moved, restored. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966