William J. Killeen House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, in my own words. Around 1886, a man named William J. Killeen built himself a fine two-story home.

Killeen was a bookkeeper, working for the Texas Cooperative Association, and by the look of the place he put up, he had an eye for something lasting. Greek revival lines, Victorian flourishes. A house that meant to stand.

And stand it did. Though Killeen himself would not be around to enjoy it long. He died that same year, 1886, the very year the house went up.

His family stayed on, living in the home he left behind, carrying on inside those walls he'd barely had time to call his own. Then came 1899. A man named Dr.

John Thomas Moore came along and purchased the property. Moore had started out as an educator, which is already a respectable enough life for most folks. But he had bigger ideas.

He became a prominent physician, and not just any physician. He pioneered the medical use of radium in the Houston area. Radium.

One of the most talked-about, most mysterious forces of the era, and here was this man, born in 1863, bringing that frontier of medicine right into the Houston area. He would live all the way to 1951. The house outlasted its builder, sheltered a family through grief, and then became the home of a man who spent his life pushing at the edges of what medicine could do.

That two-story place with its Greek revival bones and its Victorian character had quite a lot of living pressed into it. Some houses are just built that way.

What the marker says

A bookkeeper for the Texas Cooperative Association, William J. Killeen built this residence about 1886. His family continued to live here following his death the same year. In 1899 the house was purchased by Dr. John Thomas Moore (1863-1951). A former educator, he later became a prominent physician, pioneering the medical use of radium in the Houston area. The two-story home has characteristics of the Greek revival and Victorian styles. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980