Cleveland-Anson House
Valera, Coleman County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First fine house in area. Built in 1880 by George P. Cleveland, a sheep rancher. Structure, of native stone and lumber hauled from Fort Worth by ox-wagon, has two-foot walls. Second owner was Englishman Billy Anson, son of the Earl of Litchfield. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1970
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Sheep rancher George P. Cleveland built the first fine house in this part of Coleman County in 1880, using native stone and lumber hauled from Fort Worth by ox-wagon, giving it walls two feet thick. Its second owner was Billy Anson, an Englishman and son of the Earl of Litchfield who ranched in West Texas. The house was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1970.
Why it matters
Substantial stone ranch houses marked the transition of the West Texas frontier from open range to established society, drawing settlers as varied as American sheepmen and English aristocrats.
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Related people
- · George P. Cleveland
- · Billy Anson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Richard A. Pauley
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Richard A. Pauley fulfilled a boyhood dream when he was elected sheriff of Coleman County in 1923 after years as a rancher. Widely respected as a true gentleman, he often went unarmed, preferring to persuade fugitives that the law was there to protect rather than harm them. His life ended in 1925 when he was shot by two stowaways while investigating a railroad car, leaving his wife Kate and son Russell.
White Chapel Cemetery
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After Coleman County was organized in 1867, pioneer families pushed past the county seat to settle this grassy, game-filled locality and founded the village of White Chapel. When land was deeded for a school in 1884, a cemetery took root on the same ground, and school, church, and burial place all shared the community's name. Consolidation eventually drew the schoolchildren away, but the cemetery still records the families who first broke this land.
Blair House
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Georgia native J. T. Blair came to Coleman County in 1897, married into a pioneer local family, and made his living as foreman of the Overall Ranch while running his own spread. In 1914 he built this Classical Revival house in town—designed by architect J. P. Caldwell—so his five children could attend Coleman's schools. The Blair family kept the home for sixty years.
Western Trail Marker
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This tablet, placed by a local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter, honors the Western Trail that funneled vast herds of longhorns north through Coleman in the decades after the Civil War. For nearly thirty years, cowboys drove cattle "up the trail" along this route, part of the great open-range cattle drives that defined the postwar Texas economy.