DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Shade Denson House, out in Lampasas County. Now settle in, because this one earns its keep. Somebody built this house during the Civil War era — and that somebody was Shadrick T.
Denson, a soldier who served in Forney's Brigade in the Confederate Army. So right away you know this man was no stranger to hard times and hard country. He comes home, and what does he do?
He builds something. Plants it in the earth like he means to stay. And this house — it stayed.
But the story doesn't stop at the construction. Not by a long shot. Come 1870, Shadrick T.
Denson became the sheriff of Lampasas County. Now, you need to understand what that meant in that particular stretch of years — 1870 to 1874 — because the marker tells us plainly: it was a time of deadly feuds. Deadly feuds.
Not squabbles, not neighborhood disputes — feuds, the kind that left men in the ground and kept families up at night listening to the dark. Denson wore the badge right through the middle of all that. And the law caught up with him the way it sometimes does — not by failing, but by working.
He was shot in the line of duty. The wound found him, and in time, it took him. He later died as a result of that wound.
The man who built that house with his own hands, who stood between Lampasas County and its worst impulses during some of its most violent years — he paid the full price for it. The house is still there. The marker sees to it that Shadrick T.
Denson is too.
What the marker says
Built in Civil War era by Shadrick T. Denson, soldier of Forney's Brigade in the Confederate Army. Builder was Lampasas County sheriff, 1870-74, in time of deadly feuds. Shot in the line of duty, later died as result of wound. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964