Zimmerman House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, Fred Zimmerman, Senior, was born in Oregon in 1885, and sometime around 1916 he pointed himself toward the Texas Panhandle. Maybe he heard something on the wind.

Maybe he just knew. Whatever brought him, he came, and he stayed. He started acquiring farm properties out in Floyd and Deaf Smith counties, and what followed was a thirty-eight-year career of farming and ranching across that stretch of flat, wide, unforgiving country.

Thirty-eight years. That's not a flirtation with the land. That's a commitment.

Fred Zimmerman, Senior, died in 1954, and those years tell you he gave just about everything he had to that Panhandle soil. But here's the part of the story I want you to sit with for a moment. In 1930, right in the teeth of hard times, Fred Zimmerman did something that still turns heads.

He hired a Wichita Falls architect named Ray C. Arnhold, and he said, build me a house. Not just any house.

What Arnhold designed was a fine example of pueblo revival architecture. Out here on the flat plains of Floyd County, where the horizon goes on forever and the wind has opinions, there stands a stuccoed brick house with hand-hewn beams, vigas, and columns. It doesn't belong to the landscape the way you'd expect.

It declares itself. And somehow, out here, that's exactly right. Fred Zimmerman came from Oregon, put down roots in the Panhandle, and left behind a house that still asks you to stop and look twice.

What the marker says

Oregon native Fred Zimmerman, Sr. (1885-1954) came to the Texas Panhandle in 1916. He acquired a number of farm properties in the area and began a thirty-eight-year career of farming and ranching in Floyd and Deaf Smith counties. In 1930 Zimmerman hired Wichita Falls architect Ray C. Arnhold to design this house. A fine example of pueblo revival architecture, the stuccoed brick house features hand-hewn beams, vigas, and columns. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1990