Daniel H. Caswell House
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Daniel H. Caswell came to Austin from Nashville, Tennessee, about 1895. He purchased a cotton oil manufacturing company, bought and sold cotton, and in 1899 built a cotton gin. When completed for his family in 1900, this house was located in the far northwest corner of the city. The Caswell house, which exhibits influences of late Victorian, Colonial Revival, and Chateauesque style, features a corner turret and porches supported on rusticated piers. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1984
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Daniel H. Caswell arrived in Austin from Nashville about 1895 and made his fortune in cotton — buying a cotton-oil company, trading the crop, and building a cotton gin in 1899. In 1900 he completed this exuberant house on what was then the city's far northwest edge, blending late Victorian, Colonial Revival, and Chateauesque touches beneath a corner turret. Its rusticated porches and lavish detailing announced the prosperity a booming cotton economy could bring.
Why it matters
The mansion is a monument to King Cotton's grip on turn-of-the-century Texas, where processing and trading the fiber turned merchants into the builders of a growing capital city.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Daniel H. Caswell
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Herblin - Shoe House
Austin, TX
Built in 1899-1900 by local contractor John Allen Greathouse for the Herblin family, this house stood in Austin's fashionable "Quality Hill" neighborhood. Purchased by the Shoe family in 1927, it was reworked over time from an Eastlake/Queen Anne design toward Classical Revival, gaining massive Ionic columns and a stuccoed exterior. Its shifting appearance mirrors the changing architectural tastes of early-20th-century Texas.
Site of Edward Mandell House Home
Austin, TX
Edward Mandell House came to Austin in 1885 drawn by the pull of state politics, and he became one of the most influential operators of his era, managing the campaigns of four Texas governors. In 1912 he steered Woodrow Wilson to the Democratic presidential nomination, moving onto the national and world stage. The rambling shingle-style home built for him on this site in 1890 hosted many political meetings before it was sold in 1914 and finally razed in 1967.
J.W. & Cornelia Rice Scarbrough House
Austin, TX
Architect Edwin C. Kreisle designed this Italian Renaissance revival home in 1920 for prominent Austin merchant John William Scarbrough and his wife Cornelia Rice Scarbrough, who lived here until their deaths in 1960 and 1974. The two-story stucco house is distinguished by a slate roof, a deep overhanging cornice, and an arched pediment over the entry. Dramatic iron gates and railings by Austin's Weigl Ironworks remain among its finest features.
Jacob Larmour House
Austin, TX
This Victorian cottage was built in 1875 for architect Jacob Larmour, who had come to Austin with his family in 1871 and helped shape many of the growing city's commercial and residential buildings. His prominence earned him appointment as State Architect in 1879. Pharmacist Oscar G. Eckhardt bought the home in 1910 and it stayed in his family for over fifty years before being moved to this location in 1979.