John F. McGehee Home
San Marcos, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1889 by John Francis McGehee (1838-1922), a veteran of Hood's Brigade in Civil War. The house, constructed of pine hauled from Bastrop, cypress siding, and handmade brick, is of 19th century Eastlake architectural style. Since McGehee sold the property in 1906, it has had several owners. Dr. J. R. Morton, whose wife, Frances M. Morton, was San Marcos' poet laureate, lived here 1920-51. The George N. Martindales have owned the house since 1955. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1973
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John Francis McGehee, a veteran of Hood's Texas Brigade, built this Eastlake-style house in 1889 from pine hauled up from Bastrop, cypress siding, and handmade brick. After he sold it in 1906 the home passed through several notable owners, including a physician whose wife served as San Marcos' poet laureate. It has stood as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark since 1973.
Why it matters
The house links a Confederate veteran's postwar rebuilding to the genteel civic life of a growing Central Texas town.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When John Francis McGehee raised this house in 1889, Central Texas was a generation past the Civil War and changing fast. Railroads were tying small county seats like San Marcos to bigger markets. Cotton and cattle money was turning into brick storefronts, churches, and comfortable family homes. For many veterans, the 1880s were the decade when life finally felt settled enough to build something meant to last.
San Marcos sat where the Blackland Prairie meets the Hill Country, beside the clear, spring-fed San Marcos River. That location made it a natural crossroads, and by the late nineteenth century it was growing from a frontier settlement into a town with ambitions. Early in the next century it would gain a state teachers' school, the forerunner of today's Texas State University. That helped make it the educated, civic-minded place this house's later owners belonged to.
The building materials carry their own regional story. Fine pine came from the Bastrop area to the east, home of the famous Lost Pines, an isolated stand of loblolly pine far west of the great East Texas forests. Hauling lumber that distance by wagon or rail was a real investment, and it shows how much care went into this house.
People & events
John Francis McGehee was born in 1838, so he was in his early twenties when the Civil War began. According to the marker, he served in Hood's Brigade. That unit, usually called Hood's Texas Brigade, was one of the most famous Confederate formations of the war. It fought far from home with the Army of Northern Virginia and suffered terrible losses over four years of campaigning. Surviving that service, and coming home to rebuild a life, was an achievement in itself.
By 1889 McGehee was about fifty and a man of means. The house he built shows it: pine brought from Bastrop, cypress siding that resists rot, and handmade brick. He chose the Eastlake style, the fashionable look of the day, with decorative woodwork that announced a family doing well. He lived here until 1906, when he sold the property. He died in 1922.
The house kept its place in town life after McGehee left. From 1920 to 1951 it was the home of Dr. J. R. Morton and his wife, Frances M. Morton, whom the marker calls San Marcos' poet laureate. Picture three decades of a doctor's comings and goings, and a poet working in these rooms. Later owners, the George N. Martindales, held the house from 1955. They saw it designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1973.
Its place in the American story
Across the post-war South, the men who had fought for the Confederacy spent the rest of their lives as farmers, merchants, and town builders. Houses like this one are the physical record of that second chapter. They tell less about the war than about what came after it: decades of rebuilding, raising families, and shaping communities that still exist.
The house also reflects a national design trend. The Eastlake style took its name from Charles Eastlake, an English writer on furniture and household taste. American builders turned his ideas into the spindles, turned posts, and lathe-cut ornament seen on porches from New England to Texas. New woodworking machines and the railroads that carried their products made that ornament affordable, and a house in a Texas town could look as up-to-date as one back East.
Finally, the line of owners shows how a single house can carry a community's cultural life forward. It went from an old soldier to a doctor and a poet, and then to long-term owners who looked after it. Places like this show how American small towns built their own traditions of learning and the arts.
If you visit
This is a private home, so enjoy it from the street and respect the owners' privacy. Look for the hallmarks of Eastlake design: decorative spindlework, turned posts, and lathe-cut trim that gives the porch a lacy, layered look. Notice how the cypress siding and handmade brick work together. Then picture the wagonloads of Bastrop pine that went into the frame.
San Marcos is an easy stop on the corridor between Austin and San Antonio, and it rewards slowing down. The spring-fed San Marcos River is the town's great natural landmark, and the historic courthouse square and older neighborhoods make for a pleasant walk among homes from the same era.
For a longer drive, follow the Lost Pines theme east toward Bastrop, where the timber in this house came from. Or head west into the Hill Country. Either way, this house shows Central Texas in the decades when its towns grew up.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
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Themes & tags
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