DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about these Texas Log Cabins in Tarrant County. Now settle in, because this one goes back a good hundred years before the marker itself was ever written — back to when North Texas wasn't much more than timber, sky, and a whole lot of hardship waiting to happen. These authentic log cabins were built by pioneers a century before this story was set down, and they recall a way of life that asked something serious of every single person who tried to live it.
Constant threats from Indians, poor crops, adverse weather, primitive living conditions — and yet, those ingenious people did not stop. They kept on, and they turned a wilderness into a land of opportunity. That's not my embellishment.
That's just what happened. Out in the Cross Timbers country of North Texas, the log cabin was the most readily available type of construction a pioneer and his family could manage. A mill was too far away to obtain what folks called box lumber.
So you worked with what the land gave you. You picked up an axe, a broad, an adze — and you needed both skill and stamina to prepare those logs properly. The corners could be fitted in a quarter notch style or a dovetail, and the woods of choice were oak, cedar, and heart pine.
Now, when that cabin was finally standing, it wasn't just shelter. It was a welcome sight — to neighbors passing through, to saddle-sore travelers who'd been riding longer than they cared to remember. Each cabin told a personal story of frontier life and the family living within its walls.
Two of these cabins carry stories that deserve to be named out loud. The Tomkins cabin was a landmark on the Fort Worth to Belknap Road, a place where visitors were welcome — and on a frontier where the road could be long and lonesome, that kind of open door meant more than words can quite carry. Then there's the Isaac Parker cabin.
That one holds a heavier story. It was the last home of Cynthia Ann Parker, after she was taken from her Comanche family in 1860. Taken.
That word sits there in the marker and it should sit here too, without any dressing up. This Log Cabin Village was created so that part of the spirit of the Texas frontier would survive. The pioneers who raised these walls are long gone.
But the oak and the cedar and the heart pine are still standing — and if you walk among them quiet enough, you can just about hear the whole story breathing.
What the marker says
These authentic log cabins, built by pioneers 100 years ago, recall a way of life in early Texas when great courage was required to meet the hardships of frontier existence. Constant threats from Indians, poor crops, adverse weather, primitive living conditions did not stop these ingenious people from developing a wilderness into a land of opportunity. The log cabin, a familiar sight in Cross Timbers country of North Texas, was most readily available type of construction to the pioneer and his family. He was too far from a mill to obtain "box lumber." Skill, stamina were needed when preparing logs with such tools as the axe, broad and adze. Styles of fitting corners included "quarter notch" and "dovetail." Oak, cedar and heart pine woods were used. The cabin was a welcome sight to neighbors and saddle-sore travelers. Each told a personal story of frontier life and the family that lived within. The Tomkins cabin was a landmark on Ft. Worth-Belknap Road; visitors were welcome. Isaac Parker cabin was the last home of Cynthia Ann Parker after she was taken from her Comanche family in 1860. This Log Cabin Village was created so that part of the spirit of the Texas frontier would survive.