Huling Cottage
Lampasas, Lampasas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built 1860-1872. Native limestone and cedar. New England colonial architecture. Bought 1872 for $3,000 in gold by Mrs. Elizabeth Bullock Smith Huling, who as an orphan from Kentucky was in the group of Texas families fleeing toward the Sabine River just ahead of Santa Anna's army in the 1836 "Runaway Scrape". Her husband, Thomas B. Huling (1805-1865), was in the revolution, and was later a Republic of Texas Congressman.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built of native limestone and cedar in New England colonial style between 1860 and 1872, this Lampasas cottage was bought in 1872 for $3,000 in gold by Elizabeth Bullock Smith Huling. As a Kentucky orphan she had fled toward the Sabine River in the 1836 "Runaway Scrape," the panicked flight of Texas families ahead of Santa Anna's advancing army. Her husband, Thomas B. Huling, fought in the Texas Revolution and later served as a congressman of the Republic of Texas.
Why it matters
The Hulings' lives trace Texas from its desperate revolutionary flight to settled statehood, and their stone cottage stands as a tangible link between the Republic's founding generation and the towns they built.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Huling Cottage was begun in 1860, Texas had been a state for barely fifteen years. Only a generation earlier it had been a Mexican province, then an independent republic born in violence. The people who had lived through those upheavals were now in middle age. They were settling into towns like Lampasas and building houses meant to last.
The cottage took about twelve years to finish, from 1860 to 1872. Those years spanned the Civil War and Reconstruction, when money, labor and materials were all scarce across the South. A house that rose slowly out of native limestone and cedar through that decade shows how Texans kept building with whatever the land gave them, even when little else was certain.
The design is also a clue. The builders used what the marker calls New England colonial architecture, a style from far to the north and east, and made it out of Hill Country stone. Settlers carried memories of home with them and rebuilt them in local materials. The result feels both familiar and distinctly Texan.
People & events
Elizabeth Bullock Smith Huling's story begins in fear. She was an orphan from Kentucky, and in 1836 she was among the Texas families who fled east toward the Sabine River, the border with the United States, as Santa Anna's army pushed into Texas. Texans came to call that panicked flight the Runaway Scrape. Families left homes, crops and belongings behind and struggled across swollen rivers and muddy roads, not knowing whether there would be a Texas to return to.
The man she later married, Thomas B. Huling, was on the other side of that same crisis. According to the marker, he took part in the Texas Revolution. After independence he went on to serve in the Congress of the Republic of Texas, helping govern a young nation that had to invent its laws, finances and institutions from scratch.
Thomas died in 1865, the year the Civil War ended. Seven years later Elizabeth bought this cottage for $3,000 in gold. Paying in gold was a telling detail in a postwar South where paper money was distrusted. That purchase closes a remarkable arc: the orphan girl who had run from an invading army ended up owning a stone house of her own in a settled Texas town.
Its place in the American story
The Runaway Scrape is one of the great civilian stories of the Texas Revolution, and it is often overshadowed by the battles. The Alamo and San Jacinto get the monuments. Ordinary families like the one young Elizabeth traveled with bore the fear, hunger and loss of that spring. Her life is a reminder that wars of independence are lived by refugees as much as by soldiers.
The Hulings' two lives also trace Texas's unusual path into the Union. The territory went from Mexican province to independent republic to American state within a single generation, and Thomas's service in the Republic's Congress ties this house directly to that brief experiment in nationhood.
The cottage itself shows a broader American pattern. People from Kentucky, New England and elsewhere pushed west and brought their building traditions with them. Those traditions blended with local stone and timber to create the regional architecture travelers still admire today.
If you visit
Look closely at the walls. The native limestone and cedar named on the marker are the heart of this place: materials cut from the surrounding country and shaped into a style that came from far away. Notice how the stonework gives the cottage a solid, sheltering feel. That quality would have meant a great deal to a woman who once fled her home with little more than she could carry.
Take a moment with the dates too. A house built across the Civil War years and bought by a survivor of the Runaway Scrape holds a lot of Texas history within its walls. Standing in front of it, you are one step removed from the founding generation of the Republic.
Lampasas makes an easy stop on a Hill Country road trip, and it pairs naturally with other sites tied to the Texas Revolution and the Republic era. Please respect the property. Historic homes are often private, so enjoy the cottage from public vantage points unless it is clearly open to visitors.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Elizabeth Bullock Smith Huling
- · Thomas B. Huling
Related events
- · Runaway Scrape
- · Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Central Christian Church of Lampasas
Lampasas, TX
This Disciples of Christ congregation organized as early as 1879, with V. R. Stapp as its first full-time pastor. In 1905 it replaced an earlier sanctuary with the present building of hand-quarried native limestone, whose Romanesque-revival masonry and corner tower still stand out. The stonework reflects the craftsmanship of central Texas's limestone country.
Little Hotel
Lampasas, TX
When the nearby Gracy Hotel was finished in 1870, its builders used the leftover stone to raise this smaller companion, the "Little Hotel." It gave J. L. N. Gracy and his bride a private apartment upstairs while offering rooms to travelers below. Its mason, Charles Green, also worked on the larger hotel and on the Coleman County courthouse and jail, leaving his craftsmanship across the region.
First Presbyterian Church
Lampasas, TX
Growing out of Presbyterian mission work in 1877, this Lampasas congregation formally organized in 1881 with just seven members and called its first pastor the following year. Across the decades it built and rebuilt sanctuaries, gained state recognition, and, aided by the Senterfitt estate, erected a new sanctuary in 1959. The congregation marked its centennial in 1981 by publishing its own history.
Site of Old Opera House
Lampasas, TX
From 1883 to 1894 the Elks (or Barnes) Opera House brought traveling theatricals, local dramas, musical programs, and Confederate veterans' reunions to frontier Lampasas, its tiered leather chairs and brilliant chandeliers a mark of modern refinement. It was one of several hundred Texas opera houses that flourished between the Republic and World War I, drawing touring companies from San Francisco to Cincinnati before it burned in 1894 and the automobile, radio, and movies ended the era.