Howell W. Runnels Home

🏛️The era

When Howell W. Runnels arrived in 1842, Texas was an independent nation. The Republic of Texas had won independence from Mexico only six years earlier. It was thinly settled, short of money, and drew settlers from the American South with the promise of land. Many newcomers came from states like Mississippi and Tennessee, bringing their politics, their farming, and often enslaved laborers with them.

By the late 1850s Texas had been a state for more than a decade, and its politics were growing tense as the nation moved toward civil war. The Runnels family stood near the center of that politics. Hardin R. Runnels won the governorship in 1857 and served until 1859, while Howell sat in the Legislature during the same years.

The house itself belongs to a later chapter. Texarkana grew up in the early 1870s, when railroads reached the Texas-Arkansas line and a new town took shape where they met. A home built here about 1874 was part of the first wave of building in a young railroad town.

👥People & events

Howell W. Runnels came to Texas in its Republic days and made his place in public life, serving in the Legislature from 1857 to 1859. His time in office matched his brother's term as governor. It was a family that stood close to power during a heated period in Texas politics.

The most striking figure on this marker, though, is his wife, Martha C. B. Adams Runnels. During Hardin Runnels's term as governor, Martha acted as first lady of Texas. Hardin was a bachelor, and it was common for a female relative to take on that social role. The job was not a formal office, but it mattered. The governor's household was a center of hospitality, and whoever hosted it helped set the tone of social and political life in Austin.

Years later, around 1874, the family's house here was built in the style the marker describes: an open hall running through the middle and wide verandas around it. That layout was well suited to the hot, humid summers of northeast Texas. The open hall carried breezes through the house, and the shaded porches gave the family an outdoor room for much of the year.

The house was recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1964, which honors both the building and the family who lived in it.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

The Runnels story follows a path traveled by many American families in the 1800s. They moved west into Texas while it was still a separate republic, took part in its politics after it joined the United States, and put down roots in the railroad towns that remade the region after the Civil War.

Hardin Runnels's term as governor came during the bitter national debates of the late 1850s over slavery, states' rights, and union, the arguments that led to secession. A family house like this one is a reminder that those large arguments were carried on by real households, linked by marriage and kinship, whose members held office and hosted the gatherings where politics happened.

Martha Runnels's role is a quieter national theme. In an era when women could not vote or hold office, many still shaped public life through hosting, correspondence, and social leadership. The unofficial post of first lady, filled here by a sister-in-law, is a good example of how much of early American politics ran through women's work that rarely made it into the official record.

🧭If you visit

Look for the features the marker points out: the open central hall and the broad verandas. Houses built this way were practical homes made for a Southern climate before air conditioning. If you can see the layout from where you stand, notice how the porches shade the walls and how the house invites air to move through it.

This is a historic home, so enjoy it from public areas and respect the property unless it is clearly open to visitors.

Texarkana is a fun stop for any road trip, a town that sits right on the Texas-Arkansas state line and was shaped by the railroads. This marker adds a human thread to a visit: a family whose story runs back to the days when Texas was its own republic, and a woman who once presided over the social life of the governor's household.