Strode-Pritchett Log Cabin

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say, so take it for what it is. Now, out here in Houston County, there's a log cabin with a story that nearly got swallowed whole by time itself. This is the Strode-Pritchett Log Cabin, and it started its life about twelve miles east of where it stands today, out on the Jeremiah Strode League.

Somebody built it back in the 1850s, and the marker gives you two candidates. First is B.R. Wallace, born in 1800 and gone by 1873, who was Strode's son-in-law and a Texas legislator, no less.

Second is Wallace's cousin, a fellow named W.W. Wallace, born in 1821. Which one swung the axe and notched those logs?

Well, the marker says it is believed to have been one of them. History, as it tends to do, left a little wiggle room. Now here's where the story takes its turn.

Over the years, additions got built right on top of that old cabin. Layer by layer, decade by decade, the original structure disappeared beneath newer walls and newer lives. By 1950, when the land sold to W.S. and Fannie Pritchett, there was not a single visible trace of any log cabin underneath.

It sat there, hidden, holding its breath. The Pritchetts used the structure for hay storage, and that old cabin just kept its secret. Then 1973 rolled around, and somebody started poking around, and there it was.

Exposed. Logs that had been standing since the 1850s, tucked inside like a letter sealed in an envelope nobody thought to open. The cabin was given to the Houston County Historical Commission, and they did not let it stay buried.

They had it moved and restored, weaving it into the American Bicentennial and the county's own birthday celebrations. A cabin that nearly vanished into the walls of its own history, pulled back into the light just in time to help Houston County mark where it came from. Some things, it turns out, are too stubborn to disappear.

What the marker says

This log cabin was constructed on the Jeremiah Strode League (12 mi. E). It is believed to have been built in the 1850s by B.R. Wallace (1800-73), Strode's son-in-law and a Texas legislator, or by Wallace's cousin W.W. Wallace (b. 1821). Later additions covered the cabin and by 1950, when the land was sold to W.S. and Fannie Pritchett, no traces were visible. Used for hay storage until 1973 when it was exposed, the cabin was given to the Houston County Historical Commission, who had it moved here and restored as part of the American Bicentennial and annual county birthday activities. (1982)