Hancock-Heller Home
Columbus, Colorado County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Original structure built 1865 by John S. Hancock, county tax collector. Walls are of cypress with hard cedar floors. A "dog-trot" hall divides front section. In 1884 another owner moved a second house here and placed it at the rear. He also added elaborate Victorian detailing to the front porch and gable. In 1906 family of P. F. Heller, rancher and merchant, purchased home, which is still occupied by Heller descendants. RTHL - 1970
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
County tax collector John S. Hancock built the original cypress-and-cedar house here in 1865, its "dog-trot" hall dividing the front rooms. A later owner moved a second house to the rear in 1884 and dressed the porch and gable in elaborate Victorian trim. In 1906 the rancher and merchant P. F. Heller's family bought the home, and their descendants have occupied it ever since.
Why it matters
The house's layered growth—from a plain dog-trot to a Victorian showpiece—traces the changing tastes and fortunes of a Texas town across four decades.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John S. Hancock
- · P. F. Heller
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Old General Store
Columbus, TX
Built in 1892 by merchant and mayor H. S. Williams, this Columbus store was the kind of place that anchored a small Texas town—sausage hanging from the rafters, apples and potatoes cool in the cellar, and deliveries rattling out by horse-drawn dray. From 1906 to 1941 P. H. Heller Jr. and his wife Annie ran it and lived next door, part of the general store's long reign before automobiles and chain retail. It captures the sensory world of everyday commerce in turn-of-the-century rural America.
Rosenfield Building
Columbus, TX
Columbus was one of the oldest Anglo settlements in Texas, and this corner held one of its earliest downtown commercial structures, raised in 1837 and later home to a doctor's family and practice. In 1872 merchant John Rosenfield acquired the property, and around 1896 he built the handsome brick storefront that stands today. With its buff-brick walls, terra cotta trim, and paired-bay upper facade, it is a textbook example of a turn-of-the-century small-town Main Street.
Brunson Building
Columbus, TX
Charles Brunson left Westphalia, Germany, in 1845 as part of the great mid-century German migration to Texas, and by about 1867 had settled in Columbus, where his saloon prospered. In 1891 he erected this Victorian commercial building, adding an adjoining store in 1896; it poured drinks until around 1919 and then took on other uses. Aside from a lowered canopy and altered windows, it still wears its original Victorian dress.
Brick Store House
Columbus, TX
This sturdy brick building in Columbus was owned and occupied from 1840 to 1867 by Thomas W. Harris, a Virginia-born physician, in the early years of the Republic and young state of Texas. It passed through a succession of owners — the Pinchbacks, Kasper Vogel, and Bertha Wagner, whose heirs still held it — and since 1912 has sheltered the Fehrenkamp Grocery, a rare case of a frontier-era commercial building serving its town for well over a century.