I.M. (Mose) and Margaret Newman House
Sweetwater, Nolan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Ira Mose Newman, born in 1887 to a prominent Nolan County ranching family, was a leading area businessman, with interests including real estate and banking. He was an active civic leader, an award-winning trapshooter and a Texas Tech University regent. His wife, Margaret (Hamner), was also active in civic affairs. Designed in 1925 by the local firm of Nichol and Campbell, the Newman House is one-and-one-half stories with a basement. The Tudor Revival styling features a cross-gabled roofline, a pronounced chimney, grouped windows and arched entryway. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2003
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Ira Mose Newman, born in 1887 into a prominent Nolan County ranching family, became a leading Sweetwater businessman in real estate and banking, a Texas Tech University regent, and an award-winning trapshooter, while his wife Margaret (Hamner) was active in civic affairs. The local firm of Nichol and Campbell designed their home in 1925 as a one-and-a-half-story Tudor Revival house with a cross-gabled roof, prominent chimney, grouped windows, and an arched entryway.
Why it matters
The house reflects the prosperity and civic leadership of West Texas ranching and banking families in the 1920s and the period-revival architecture they favored.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Ira Mose Newman
- · Margaret Hamner Newman
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Davis House
Sweetwater, TX
Walter Wright Davis and his wife Florence built this Sweetwater home in 1916, its design caught midway between the craftsman bungalow and the Colonial Revival. Exposed rafter ends, knee braces, and divided-light window sashes mark it as typical of 1920s domestic building. A 1927 remodeling added twin dormers and traded the original broad porch for a small entry.
Simmons House
Sweetwater, TX
The cotton-oil magnate and civic leader Robert Mosby Simmons built this Sweetwater home as a modest one-story house in 1919, then hired Dallas architect Anton Korn in 1934–35 to transform it into a two-story Spanish Colonial Revival showpiece. Its barrel-tile roof, bracketed soffits, bow window and classical doorway reflected the prosperity and tastes of West Texas business leaders between the wars.
Ragland Building
Sweetwater, TX
Community leader R. A. Ragland raised this hand-hewn limestone building in Sweetwater in 1901, adding a second story in 1906. Over the decades its floors held a remarkable range of West Texas commerce and services—a blacksmith shop, a hardware store, law and abstract offices, a Western Union telegraph office, a cotton exporter, doctors, and even a sanatorium. It was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1979.
S.D. Myres
Sweetwater, TX
Samuel Dale Myres learned the saddle-maker's trade as an apprentice in Cleburne before moving to Sweetwater in 1898, where his exceptional craftsmanship earned wide renown. He served as the town's mayor from 1908 to 1911 and relocated his saddlery to this building in 1919 after fire destroyed his first shop. In 1937 he closed the Sweetwater business and moved to El Paso, where he continued making saddles until his death in 1953.