The E. B. Black Residence

Duane's take

Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little color on the side. We're talking about the E. B.

Black Residence, out in Deaf Smith County, Hereford, Texas. Now settle in, because this one's got layers. E.

B. Black was born in Alabama in 1866, and by the time 1901 rolled around, he had decided that Cleburne, Texas was behind him and Hereford was ahead. He packed up his family and made the move, and Hereford, whether it knew it or not, was about to get one of its more consequential citizens.

Black opened a furniture store. That's where it started. Just a furniture store.

But the man had a knack, because before long he'd grown into a prosperous merchant and a rancher both. Two kinds of Texas ambition, and he was working them at the same time. Then comes 1909, and E.

B. Black does what a man does when things are going well. He hires a contractor named Emmett Vanderburgh, and he says, build me a house.

Not just any house. A Late Victorian house. Right there in Hereford.

Vanderburgh built it, and that house became something more than shelter. The Blacks were active in church affairs, active in cultural affairs, and this residence, this particular house, was often the site of community gatherings. People came through those doors.

Conversations happened. The kind of place a town remembers. E.

B. Black lived from 1866 to 1945, and the home he commissioned outlasted him, outlasted generations of questions about what lasts in a place like the Texas Panhandle. Members of the Black family occupied that home all the way until 1977.

That's a family holding on to something they built, something they gathered around, something they made matter. The marker's there now to make sure the rest of us don't forget it.

What the marker says

In 1901 Alabama-born E. B. Black (1866-1945) brought his family to Hereford from Cleburne, Texas. He opened a furniture store and became a prosperous merchant and rancher. In 1909 Black hired contractor Emmett Vanderburgh to build this Late Victorian house. The Blacks were active in church and cultural affairs and this residence was often the site of community gatherings. Members of the Black family occupied the home until 1977. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1978