The Post-Hundley House

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Post-Hundley House out in Garza County. Now, Charles W. Post is a name you might recognize from your breakfast table, and that is not an accident.

Born in 1854, died in 1914, the man was a famed cereal manufacturer, and he didn't just build a business. He built a whole town. Founded it himself, right here, as a model community.

And when a man founds a model town, well, he's going to need somewhere to stay when he comes to check on things. So in 1907, the employees of the Double U Company got to work. They quarried native stone by hand, pulled right out of the nearby Caprock, and they raised up this cottage.

The design itself came from a member of Post's staff all the way over in Battle Creek, Michigan. Picture that, a plan drawn up in Michigan, stone cut from the Texas Caprock, hands working right here on the rolling plains. And Post occupied that residence during his frequent visits, walking those rooms, overseeing his model town, the whole grand project of the place.

Then 1914 came, and Post was gone. The town kept going. The cottage kept standing.

After 1917, the J.L. Stewart family and the Jim Hundley family moved through that structure, occupied it, and, here's the part worth remembering, they preserved it. Not every old stone building gets that kind of care.

Some folks just let a thing fall. These families didn't. The Caprock stone that those Double U Company workers cut by hand is still there, still holding, and the house still carries both names.

Post and Hundley. The man who built a town, and the family that kept his cottage whole.

What the marker says

Charles W. Post (1854-1914), famed cereal manufacturer who founded this community as a model town, occupied this residence during his frequent visits here. Employees of the Double U Company constructed the cottage in 1907 using native stone hand-quarried in the nearby Caprock. The design was drawn by a member of Post's staff in Battle Creek, Michigan. After 1917, the J.L. Stewart and Jim Hundley families occupied and preserved the structure. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976