Tannahill Homestead

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Back in 1853, a Scottish-born man named Robert Watt Tannahill, born in 1821, made his way here to Tarrant County with his wife Mary Catherine, born a Smallwood, and they came all the way from Mississippi. Now, that's a journey worth a moment of quiet respect right there.

They arrived, they looked at this land, and they decided this was the place. Three years later, in 1856, Tannahill patented this very tract, three hundred and twenty acres sitting right on the Fort Worth-Azle Road. Prime real estate, as they say, though the currency back then was sweat and grit rather than square footage and curb appeal.

Then comes 1874, and Tannahill does something that tells you everything about the kind of man he was. He goes down to a nearby creek bank, pulls rocks right out of it, and uses those creek-bottom stones to build the house that's standing here to this day. He didn't order it from a catalogue.

He built it out of the land itself. And once it was built, that house started working hard. From 1878 all the way to 1885, Tannahill served as a Tarrant County Judge, and that front room, the very front room of this stone house, served as a Post Office.

Court in the county, mail in the parlor. That's a man earning his keep twice over. And if that weren't enough, this place was also a stagecoach station, the first stop west of Fort Worth on that road.

Think about what that means. Every traveler heading west out of Fort Worth, every letter, every bit of legal business in this part of Tarrant County, it all passed through this one stone house that Robert Watt Tannahill built with rocks from the creek. He passed in 1885, the same year his post office duties ended.

In 1894 the house was sold to an early pioneer by the name of William Thomas Tinsley, born in 1858. Then in 1945 it passed to Mrs. Verna Burns Stubbs.

Three families, nearly a century of hands on those creek-stone walls. Some buildings just have a way of holding on, and this one, it seems, learned that early.

What the marker says

In 1853 Scottish-born Robert Watt Tannahill (1821-1885) and his wife Mary Catherine (Smallwood) came here from Mississippi. In 1856 Tannahill patented this 320-acre tract on the Fort Worth-Azle Road. He used rocks from a nearby creek bank to construct this house in 1874. He served as a Tarrant County Judge and used the front room of this home for a Post Office from 1878 to 1885. This was also a stagecoach station for the first stop west of Fort Worth. The house was sold in 1894 to early pioneer William Thomas Tinsley (1858-1909) and in 1945 to Mrs. Verna Burns Stubbs. (1979)