DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little color on the side. Way back in 1858, a man named Chas. Johnson raised a house near the Wm.
McGill Ford on the Colorado River, out in Travis County. Now, Johnson didn't call in just anybody to do the work. He called in fellow Swedes.
And they didn't reach for whatever was handy — they cut native stone right out of Johnson's own quarry, fired their own lime kiln, and stacked walls a full eighteen inches thick. Eighteen inches. You could lean a cannon against those walls and the house would shrug.
That is a man who was not building for the moment. He was building for the ages. The two wings of the place were joined by a stone-paved breezeway — open to the air, letting the Texas wind do what Texas wind does.
There it stood, solid and sure, for decade after decade. Then came 1924. Travis Post 76 of the American Legion purchased the property, making it their permanent home.
And when they moved in, they made it their own. A long porch went up, graced with six Ionic columns — the kind of porch that says something about a place, that announces it. The open breezeway got closed in.
The bones Chas. Johnson and his fellow Swedes had laid down in 1858 held every bit of it. Eighteen-inch walls, a man's own quarry, a community's labor — and more than sixty years later, it's still standing strong enough to carry a new chapter.
Some things are just built to last.
What the marker says
Erected 1858 by Chas. Johnson, near the Wm. McGill Ford on the Colorado River. Built by fellow Swedes, of native stone from his own quarry and lime kiln. Walls are 18-inches thick. A stone-paved breezeway joined the two wings of the building. A long porch with six Ionic columns was added, and the open breezeway closed, following the purchase of the property in 1924 as permanent home of the Travis Post 76, American Legion. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966