Gober-Barron-Williford House
Paducah, Cottle County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Late Victorian structure, has fine glass and gingerbread trim. Built 1896 and lived in by first (1892-1898) Cottle County Sheriff, Joe L. Gober. At that time, many townspeople lived in dugouts. Building materials had to be hauled from railroad towns of Childress and Quanah. (Paducah acquired railway line in 1909). Gober sold home to W. M. Barron, who was County's third sheriff. Since, 1941, it has been owned by the J. H. Williford family. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1962
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1896 when many townspeople still lived in dugouts, this ornate late-Victorian house belonged to Joe L. Gober, the first sheriff of newly settled Cottle County. Its lumber and fine gingerbread trim had to be hauled by wagon from the railheads at Childress and Quanah, years before Paducah gained its own rail line in 1909.
Why it matters
The house marks the arrival of settled, ambitious town life on the raw West Texas frontier.
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Related people
- · Joe L. Gober
- · W. M. Barron
- · J. H. Williford
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cottle County
Paducah, TX
Cottle County, created in 1876 and organized in 1892 along the breaks of the Pease and Little Wichita rivers, honors George Washington Cottle, a DeWitt's Colony settler who fought at Gonzales and died defending the Alamo in March 1836. The marker frames his sacrifice within the broader story of how Texas named its 254 counties—the great majority for revolutionaries, statesmen, and Confederate figures. Cottle was one of fifteen Alamo defenders so remembered.
The Gray and The Blue
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Around 1885, Civil War veterans of both the Gray and the Blue drifted into western Texas to tame the wilderness, grazing cattle on drought-parched grass and living in dugouts. Old adversaries refought the war verbally on the courthouse square yet built Cottle County together in peace—some 85 percent of early pioneers had worn Confederate gray, though Union men like Prussian immigrant William Frederick Liedtke, a former Nebraska state auditor, settled here too as respected officials. By the 1890s the uniform that mattered was a cowman's regalia, worn by Americans looking forward rather than back.
Cottle County Courthouse
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Cottle County was created in 1876 and named for George Washington Cottle, who died at the Alamo, though settlers did not organize it until 1892, choosing a central townsite they named Paducah after one settler's Kentucky home. After two earlier courthouses, the county broke ground in 1929 on a striking four-story Art Deco building by the firm of Voelcker and Dixon. Its stepped masses, carved eagles, and figures of justice and liberty have drawn comparisons to an Egyptian temple.
Martin, Emmett
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Emmett Martin was the ten-year-old son of a West Texas trapper, J. A. Martin. In 1898 he was sent to the Shinnery settlement to fetch provisions for his father's camp; caught in a sudden blizzard on the return, he lost his way and froze to death, his body found days later in King County. Paducah's Jaycees erected this marker in his memory in 1967.