DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Now, if you want to understand a house, sometimes you gotta start with what came before it. And what came before the Kean Home was a tornado — the Cisco tornado of 1893 — the kind of storm that has a way of clearing the slate.
Soon after that destructive twister tore through, construction began on this house. It was originally built for George and Carrie Langston, a fresh start rising up right in the aftermath. Then, in 1899, a man named Edward Everett Kean came into the picture and purchased the property.
Now Kean was no stranger to Cisco — he'd arrived back in 1889, set himself up as a dry goods merchant, and made himself a man of the community, active in its affairs by every account the marker gives us. Born in 1857, he'd live all the way to 1942, and for a good long stretch of that life, this house was his. The house itself is something to see.
It carries what they call Eastlake influences — and you can feel it most in the decorative woodwork, those flourishes that give the place a character all its own. That's not just a house, that's a statement in timber and craft. And the Kean family, they didn't let go of it easy.
That home stayed in Kean hands for more than seventy years. Seventy years of Cisco summers, of community and commerce, all anchored to a place that first took shape in the wake of a storm. Some houses, friend, are built to outlast just about everything.
What the marker says
Construction on this home began soon after the destructive Cisco tornado of 1893. Originally built for George and Carrie Langston, it was purchased in 1899 by Edward Everett Kean (1857-1942). A dry goods merchant, Kean had come to Cisco in 1889 and was active in community affairs. This house, which features Eastlake influences, particularly in the decorative woodwork, remained in the Kean Family for more than 70 years. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1985