HistoricSiteMarkers
Progressive & Modern Era

John and Ettie Mayfield House

Holland, Bell County, Texas

Marker Inscription

This was the home of John Henry Mayfield (1865-1954), his wife Ettie Monroe Alsobrook (1869-1957) and their three daughters. The Mayfields moved to Holland about 1908 where Mr. Mayfield owned and operated a local cotton gin. Local contractors Frank Wood & Sons built this house in 1914. This Craftsman-influenced Prairie School building features emphasized horizontal lines, a wraparound porch, double gallery, and fine interior woodwork and craftsmanship. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1995

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

John Henry Mayfield moved his family to Holland around 1908 and ran a local cotton gin, the engine of countless Central Texas farm towns in the cotton era. In 1914 local contractors built this Craftsman-influenced Prairie School house, with its strong horizontal lines, wraparound porch, and fine interior woodwork. The Mayfields and their three daughters made it their home for decades.

Why it matters

A ginner's fine home reflects the prosperity that cotton brought to early-twentieth-century Texas towns and preserves a regional expression of the Prairie School style.

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Related people

  • · John Henry Mayfield
  • · Ettie Monroe Alsobrook Mayfield

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Holland Community

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Holland grew out of three settlements that began drawing farmers to this fertile ground in the 1830s, first clustering around a place called Mountain Home. In 1878 Civil War veteran James R. "Rube" Holland built a steam-powered cotton gin, a post office took his name, and when the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad arrived in 1881 the town shifted to a new site. Czech and German immigrants poured in, and by 1920 Holland was a thriving cotton town of over a thousand, with banks, hotels, gins, and an opera house.

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Settlers first trickled into this area in the 1830s, when Texas was still a republic, but the town of Bartlett itself waited until the 1870s, founded by J. Edward Pietzsch and Capt. John T. Bartlett. The railroad's arrival in 1882 turned the town into a major regional cotton market, and it incorporated in 1890 astride the Williamson–Bell county line — a boundary that literally divides some of its buildings. It has remained a trade hub for the surrounding farmland.

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