Thomas Kraitchar, Jr. House

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this one. Now, not every house on a Texas backroad has a story worth slowing down for, but every now and then you pass a place that's been quietly holding its ground while the whole world changed around it. The Thomas Kraitchar, Jr.

House in Burleson County is one of those places. Built in 1891, it's what the folks who know these things call a Victorian cottage-style residence, and it is, by all accounts, a fine example of exactly that. Cypress construction, which is no small thing, cypress being a wood that tends to outlast the people who argue about it.

The facade runs five bays wide, perfectly symmetrical, with a central gable anchoring the whole arrangement. Someone put real thought into this place. That someone was Thomas Kraitchar, Jr., born in 1870 and gone by 1946, a man who kept himself busy.

By profession he was a merchant. But Burleson County also called on him to serve as Tax Collector, and the city of Caldwell put him to work as an Alderman. So this wasn't a man who built a pretty house and sat in it.

He was out in the community, collectin' taxes, serving on the city council, doing the unglamorous work that keeps a place running. And through all of it, the house stood. It stayed in the Kraitchar family, generation to generation, all the way to 1982.

Nearly a century under the same name. That's not luck. That's the kind of staying power that cypress was made for.

What the marker says

A fine example of a Victorian cottage-style residence, this home was built in 1891 for Thomas Kraitchar, Jr. (1870-1946). A merchant by profession, Kraitchar also served terms as the Burleson County Tax Collector and as a Caldwell City Alderman. His house, of cypress construction, features a five-bay symmetrical facade with a central gable. It remained in the Kraitchar family until 1982.