John E. Gardner Place
Big Lake, Reagan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Oldest house in Reagan County. Had no window glass. Used swing shutter. Mud mortared native stone Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1964.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This mud-mortared house of native stone is the oldest in Reagan County, a plain and practical dwelling built without window glass — its openings closed instead by swinging shutters. It survives as a rare witness to how the first families made a home on the arid West Texas range, using only the stone at hand.
Why it matters
Humble structures like the Gardner place record the hard early years of settlement in a country where lumber and glass were luxuries and shelter was wrung from the land itself.
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Related people
- · John E. Gardner
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Reagan County
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Reagan County was carved from Tom Green County and organized in 1903 as ranching and, later, oil pushed settlement across the West Texas plains. It honors John H. Reagan (1818-1905), an Indian fighter, surveyor, and long-serving Texas congressman who became Postmaster General of the Confederacy and later a founding force of the Texas Railroad Commission. The county seat moved from Stiles to Big Lake in 1925.
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