Dundee Angus Ranch Home, 1859
Longview, Gregg County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built by a pioneer physician, Dr. J. N. Allison, who brought some materials from Virginia. Bricks made by slave labor from clay on building site. Located nearby is Lathrop Discovery Oil Well, extending famous East Texas field. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Raised on the eve of the Civil War, this ranch home was the work of Dr. J. N. Allison, a pioneer physician who hauled building materials all the way from Virginia and had its bricks fired on site from local clay by enslaved laborers. The house stood on land that would later prove to sit atop the vast East Texas oil field, with the nearby Lathrop Discovery Well extending that famous strike. It marks the layering of Old South settlement and 20th-century petroleum wealth on a single patch of Gregg County ground.
Why it matters
The home ties together two defining American stories on one site: the antebellum frontier built on enslaved labor, and the East Texas oil boom that reshaped the region and the nation's energy economy.
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Related people
- · Dr. J. N. Allison
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Wartime Home Industry
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On this site from 1861 to 1865, settler Joseph M. Sparkman ran a shop making shoes for the Confederate Army, directing the work from his cot because arthritis had left him unable to stand. The actual shoemaking was supervised and taught by "Uncle Ben," an enslaved craftsman who had come with him from Georgia and who trained the boys and old men left behind by the war. Both men are buried in the family plot nearby.
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Longview
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When surveyors laid out this East Texas townsite in 1870, they named it for the long view from Rock Hill, and the settlement incorporated the following year as the seat of Gregg County. Railroads, lumber, and cotton built the early town, which saw the notorious Dalton Gang stage its final raid on a local bank in 1894 and raised two future Texas governors. The 1931 Lathrop well nearby pushed the East Texas oil field into the largest in the world, transforming Longview into a petroleum and financial hub.