DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one passing it along. Now, San Antonio has no shortage of old stone houses with stories lodged in their walls, but the Oge House — that one carries a particular weight. The first floor and basement go back as early as 1857, when the place belonged to Attorney Newton A.
Mitchell and his wife Catherine, born an Elder. That stone was stacked before the Civil War, before the railroads came through, before most of what you'd recognize as modern San Antonio had any shape to it at all. Then, in 1881, a man named Louis Oge bought it.
And that's where things get interesting. Louis Oge was born in 1832, and he made it to Texas in 1845, coming over with the Castor Colony. Now, he didn't arrive and sit still.
He rode with the Texas Rangers — under W.A.A. Wallace, the one history remembers as Bigfoot Wallace — and after all that, he turned himself into a rancher. Not a struggling one, either.
A fortune-making one. By the time he laid down money for that Mitchell house in 1881, Oge was already a man of standing. He'd go on to serve as an Alderman.
He served as school board president. San Antonio business leader — that's how the marker puts it, and by all accounts it fits. But here's where Louis Oge shows you who he really was.
He didn't just buy that 1857 house and call it done. He brought in Alfred Giles — the leading architect — and had him enlarge the whole thing, remodel it in Neo-Classical style. A man who'd ridden with Bigfoot Wallace, built a cattle fortune on the open range, and then said: give me columns and symmetry.
Give me something that lasts. Louis Oge died in 1915. The house he reshaped is still standing in San Antonio.
Stone and style, outlasting the man — which is, when you think about it, exactly what he had in mind.
What the marker says
One of early stone residences of San Antonio. First floor and basement were built as early as 1857 when place was owned by Attorney Newton. A. Mitchell and wife Catherine (Elder). Louis Oge (1832-1915) bought house in 1881, after migrating (1845) to Texas with the Castor Colony, serving in Texas Rangers under W.A.A. ("Bigfoot") Wallace, and making a fortune as a rancher. He was a San Antonio business leader and served as Alderman and school board president. He had leading architect Alfred Giles enlarge and remodel the house in Neo-Classical style.