W. A. Strain Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do it justice. Now, you want a house with a story behind it, you don't need to look any further than the W. A.

Strain Home. Because before a single nail was driven, before a single shingle was cut, this piece of ground already had history in it; the kind of history that runs back to 1846, when Minnie Strain's pioneer family bought this very property. That's not a typo.

Eighteen forty-six. The ink on the Texas annexation papers was barely dry. Fast forward about half a century, and W.

A. Strain (born in 1861) and his wife Minnie, born in 1867, decided this land deserved a house worthy of it. They broke ground in 1895.

Now, they weren't going to throw just any four walls together on a piece of ground that old. They brought in James E. Flanders, a noted architect out of the Dallas firm of Flanders-Moad, and Flanders knew exactly what to do.

What he designed was a frame Victorian house; and when I say Victorian, I mean the full treatment. Ornate porch decoration. And fishscale shingling.

Say that out loud: fishscale shingling. Little overlapping scales of wood climbing the exterior like something dreamed up at a gingerbread convention. That is a house that wants to be looked at.

It took a while to get right. Construction ran through 1895 and wasn't completed until late 1896. Some things you don't rush.

W. A. Strain lived in that house until his death in 1907.

Minnie (and here is where you stop and appreciate Minnie) Minnie White Strain lived until 1957. Ninety years on this earth, and she watched that Victorian house stand through it all. The home didn't leave the family when Minnie was done with it.

The Strains' son, Ellis White, born in 1900, took up residence there with his wife Ruth, born in 1902. Ruth Clark Strain passed in 1975. Ellis and Ruth raised four daughters inside those fishscale walls, under that ornate porch, on land that first came into the family all the way back in 1846.

One property. One family. Over a century of keeping the faith with it.

That house wasn't just built; it was earned.

What the marker says

This residence was built for W. A. (1861 - 1907) and Minnie (White) Strain (1867 - 1957), whose pioneer family bought this property in 1846. Begun in 1895, the structure was completed in late 1896. Noted architect James E. Flanders of the Dallas firm of Flanders-Moad designed the frame Victorian house, with its ornate porch decoration and fishscale shingling. The Strain's son Ellis White (b. 1900) later occupied the home with his wife Ruth (Clark) (1902 - 1975) and their four daughters. RTHL 1977