HistoricSiteMarkers
Progressive & Modern Era

Bennett-Richardson House

Whitesboro, Grayson County, Texas

Marker Inscription

This residence was built in 1902 for the family of local business leader Bland Bennett and Grace (Dunlap) Bennett. Exhibiting Victorian and classical revival detailing, its prominent features include a 1-story wraparound porch with a pedimented primary entrance, a hipped roof, and corbelled chimneys. Its transitional floor plan is reminiscent of both center passage and American foursquare plans. The H. S. Richardson family purchased the house in 1942. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1991

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

This handsome residence was built in 1902 for business leader Bland Bennett and his wife Grace, blending Victorian ornament with classical revival details like a pedimented wraparound porch and corbelled chimneys. Its floor plan echoes both the center-passage house and the emerging American foursquare. The Richardson family bought the home in 1942.

Why it matters

The house captures the confident, transitional architecture of a prospering North Texas town at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · Bland Bennett
  • · Grace Dunlap Bennett

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Sanborn Ranch

Whitesboro, TX

Established in the late 1870s by H.B. Sanborn, a leading promoter of barbed wire, this Grayson County showplace became the first large Texas spread fenced with the new wire—a working demonstration meant to convince skeptical cattlemen. The model project helped hasten the end of the open range that had defined the cattle frontier. In 1888 Sanborn went on to found the city of Amarillo, then sold the ranch.

First Oil Well in Cooke County

Callisburg, TX

On November 9, 1924, a well on the Bud W. Davis Farm struck oil and transformed a quiet farming community into the frontier of a multi-million-dollar industry. A carnival atmosphere took hold as sightseers and reporters flocked to the lease—one enterprising man even charged admission until a worker put a stop to it. Drilled by C. A. Doudrick's Big Indian Oil Company, the discovery well kept producing until it was plugged in 1970.

Hagerman

Pottsboro, TX

In 1904 J. P. Smith laid out streets in a ten-acre wheat field and named the new town Hagerman for a railroad attorney. Within a few years it was a real place — 250 people, a cotton gin, school, church, depot, and shops, growing to three churches and a three-teacher school. Then the future arrived as a rising tide: word spread in the 1920s that the planned Lake Texoma would drown the town, residents drifted away, and the 1943 reservoir finished the job.

Dougherty, F. M.

Gainesville, TX

Francis Marion Dougherty, an Alabama native, came to Texas in the 1840s and settled in Gainesville in 1858, later serving in the Civil War and seeing action in the Red River Campaign. Returning to Cooke County, he built a career as a merchant and banker and won election to the Texas House of Representatives in 1879 and 1881. There he worked on fence law, county boundaries, agriculture, and railroad development, while helping launch the county fair through the local board of trade.