Texas Historic Sites Inventory Residential Property
This survey includes residential properties surveyed by various agencies and submitted to the THC since July 1991. More than 270 documents are included, representing historic residences, a few as early as the 1850s, but most from the 1910s to 1930s, from locations across the state. Austin (Travis Co.), Grapevine (Tarrant), Houston (Harris), and Newton (Newton) are most heavily represented to date. Also of interest are sites surveyed in Buda (Hays Co.), College Station (Brazos), and rural Fays Corner (Hidalgo).
Data from this survey can be located in a county search of neighborhood surveys and is distinguishable by the prefix "NRSRP" in the site serial number.
What will I find?
Each document includes identifying information: serial number, county, site number, USGS quad number, UTM coordinates, city/rural designation, factual or estimated construction date, date of additions, historic name, property address, architect/builder, contractor, owner, historic use, legal description, present use, property type/subtype, and stylistic influence.
The remaining information gives a detailed physical description of the property, including location (original, moved, date moved, direction building faces); number of stories; construction (brick, color of brick, stone, color of stone, other); plan (L, modified L, center passage, 2-room, T, bungalow, shotgun, asymmetrical, other); foundation materials (pier and beam, stone, brick, other); exterior wall surface (weatherboard siding, drop siding, stucco, stone, board and batten, fieldstone veneer, brick, wood shingle, synthetic siding, other); porches (number of bays, elevation, shed roof, hipped roof, gable roof, inset, turned wood posts, square posts, camfered wood posts, brick piers, box columns, classical columns, tapered box supports, fabricated metal, squared wood balusters, turned wood balusters, jig-sawn brackets, jig-sawn porch frieze, other); windows (wood sash, aluminum sash, double-hung, casement, fixed, decorative screenwork, light configuration, other); doors/entries (single door primary entry, double door primary entry, two primary entries, transom, sidelights, other); gable end treatment (same as wall, stucco, wood shingle, wood siding, decorative bargeboards, windows, vents, other); roof type (gable, hip, flat with parapet, gambrel, dormers-gable, hipped, or shed-other); roof materials (wood shingle, composition shingles, tile, metal, box eaves, exposed rafter ends, jig sawn brackets, stick brackets, other); chimneys (number, interior, exterior, brick, stone, corbelled caps, stucco, other); other miscellaneous data; outbuildings (garage, barn, shed, other); and landscape features (sidewalks, terracing, drives, well or cistern, gardens).
Additional information includes integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, association, and feeling; history of property; areas of significance; bibliography; surveyor and date surveyed; photo/slide data; historic designations (National Register, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, Historic Areas Building Survey, local, or other).
How can I use it?
Students and teachers with an interest in early 1900s residential architecture and local history buffs, particularly those with an interest in certain locales, will find useful information in this survey. Residences in the east Texas hamlet of Newton, many exhibiting the Craftsman influences of the 1900s and 1910s, are listed. Turn-of-the-century gable-front bungalows and the later hip-roofed cottages common in the College St. area of Grapevine are also chronicled. Several houses associated with Texas A&M University in College Station, from the 1910s and later, are represented, including one house completed as a project of A&M architectural students. A handful of Classical Revival bungalows in Buda, associated with early post-railroad development in the 1910s, are documented here, as are residences in the east Austin vicinity of Oakwood Cemetery, most of them 1920s bungalows. Early agricultural development in the lower Rio Grande Valley is represented with surveys of several rural residences in Fays Corner, including an historic demonstration farm to entice new farming development in the area. In addition, a number of residences along Gulf Bank Road in Houston, most from the 1940s, but some from the 20s and 30s, are also surveyed.
Since family names are given where available, this data may also be of limited use to genealogists.
What else should I know?
Surveys completed in some locales are more detailed than others as to property history, some offering no comments, others merely listing known previous owners, and others providing additional biographical/historical details, when available. While physical descriptions of the residences may be somewhat more difficult to grasp than when presented in a narrative format, the descriptions offered here are considerably detailed.