DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Shaw-Keiser House in Randall County. Now, every good house has two stories. This one has that literally — but we'll get to that.
It starts with a man named Travis Shaw, born in 1875, a local banker and civic leader who would go on to serve as secretary and business manager of West Texas State Normal College. Around 1908 and into 1909, Shaw decided he wanted a house worth remembering. So he reached all the way to Dallas and commissioned the firm of Lang and Witchell to draw it up — a one-story Craftsman style brick residence, the kind of place that says, quietly but firmly, that somebody here has taste.
Then he handed the plans to Canyon contractors Gillcoat and Skinner, and they built the thing. Gallery porches. A pyramidal roof.
Low-pitched cross gables and exposed rafter tails. Every detail deliberate. Every line telling you this was not an accident.
Now here's where the story turns. In 1911, a man named C.O. Keiser came along and bought the house.
Keiser — born in 1868 — was the kind of man who collected ambitions the way some folks collect debts: land developer, newspaper owner, banker, entrepreneur. When C.O. Keiser looked at Travis Shaw's already fine one-story Craftsman brick home, he apparently thought, well, one story just won't do.
So he enlarged it. Added a second story, with additional Craftsman details, and the man he trusted to pull it off was a master carpenter named Norris Root, of the local firm of Root and Wragge. Root knew what he was doing.
The additions didn't fight the original — they finished it. Travis Shaw imagined it. C.O.
Keiser doubled it. And Norris Root, master carpenter, made sure the whole thing held together. That's the Shaw-Keiser House — built in two chapters, by three very different kinds of men, and still standing in Canyon to prove it.
What the marker says
Travis Shaw (1875-1946) was a local banker and civic leader who later served as secretary and business manager of West Texas State Normal College. He commissioned the Dallas firm of Lang and Witchell to design a one-story Craftsman style brick residence, and Canyon contractors Gillcoat & Skinner built it in 1908-09. C.O. Keiser (1868-1928), land developer, newspaper owner, banker and entrepreneur, bought the house in 1911 and enlarged it, adding a second story with additional Craftsman details by master carpenter Norris Root of the local firm of Root and Wragge. The house features gallery porches, a pyramidal roof, low-pitched cross gables and exposed rafter tails. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2007