Allen-Fowler House
Bastrop, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Bastrop Academy opened in 1851 with Prof. William J. Hancock of Aberdeen, Mississippi as headmaster. He arrived in early 1852 and built this house for his family and student boarders. The Academy became the Bastrop Military Institute in 1857, with Colonel R.T.P. Allen replacing Hancock. Col. Allen and his wife Julia moved into this home and continued to rent out the back wing for boarding cadets. Sam Houston, whose sons were cadets at the Institute, was a guest of the Allens. County attorney and later state senator John Preston Fowler bought the property in 1876. Fowler added elaborate jigsawn detailing and a projecting bay window to this two-story modified L-plan house with first and second story galleries. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2008
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built around 1852 for the headmaster of the new Bastrop Academy, this house doubled as a boarding home for students in an era when frontier towns prized any school they could get. When the academy became the Bastrop Military Institute in 1857 under Col. R.T.P. Allen, the home hosted cadets and even welcomed Sam Houston, whose sons studied there. A later owner dressed the two-story L-plan house in the jigsawn woodwork and bay window fashionable in the Victorian age.
Why it matters
The house links an antebellum Texas school and its military institute to Sam Houston himself, preserving a tangible thread of early Texas education and civic life.
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Related people
- · William J. Hancock
- · R.T.P. Allen
- · Sam Houston
- · John Preston Fowler
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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