John Wesley Malone Home
Brownwood, Brown County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pioneer ranchers Modie J. and Samuel R. Coggin began this house after 1874. They sold it in 1888 to John Wesley Malone (1858-1932), who added the second floor in 1904. Malone ran a hardware store in partnership with his longtime friend Will H. Mayes, who became Texas' lieutenant governor, 1913-14. Also located here is Brownwood's first public swimming pool, built by Malone's father-in-law, John W. Lambeth. T. W. and Helen Waddill bought the residence in 1970. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Pioneer ranchers Modie and Samuel Coggin began this Brownwood house after 1874, but it took its name from John Wesley Malone, who bought it in 1888 and added a second story in 1904. A hardware merchant, Malone was in business with lifelong friend Will H. Mayes, who went on to serve as Texas' lieutenant governor. The grounds even held Brownwood's first public swimming pool, built by Malone's father-in-law.
Why it matters
The home ties together the ranching, commerce, and civic life that built a West Texas town in a single generation.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Wesley Malone
- · Will H. Mayes
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mud Creek Cemetery
Bangs, TX
This hilltop graveyard has served the Thrifty and Fry communities of Brown County for well over a century, its oldest legible burial dating to 1864 and a weathered rock slab hinting at use as early as 1862. Among those laid to rest are pioneer settler Charles Mullins, who brought his family west in 1858, people killed in frontier Indian attacks, and workers caught up in the oil boom of 1926–27. The stones read like a timeline of the West Texas frontier, from first settlement through the derricks of the petroleum age.
Bowser Community
Richland Springs, TX
Around 1858 the Abel Bowser family settled at a bend of the Colorado River, and the village of Bowser Bend grew up with a school, cemetery, cotton gin, and store by the late 1880s. Recurring floods pushed the town to relocate after Paul Varga donated higher land for a chapel and cemetery in 1890, but the loss of its post office, gin, and school sent Bowser into decline by the 1940s.
Community of Sidney
Sidney, TX
Sidney took shape around 1870 when early settlers located along Jimmie's Creek, building a log schoolhouse by a spring in 1877 that also hosted the town's Methodist, Baptist, and Church of Christ congregations in turn. A store, post office (named for a storekeeper's son), and Holstein dairy herds followed, and by the early 1900s the town had doctors, drug stores, and a telephone exchange. It also basked in the fame of nearby Round Mountain, the first field laboratory of world-renowned geologist Dr. Robert T. Hill.
Ratler, Texas and the Renfro Dam
Goldthwaite, TX
In the late 1870s Mary and J. W. Jones threw a dam of live-oak logs and sandstone across the Colorado River to power a grist mill and cotton gin, and a settlement called Jones Valley grew up around the trade it drew. When the mail arrived after Mills County's formation, the town was rechristened Ratler, and its dam became a favorite swimming and fishing spot for area settlers. Successive owners rebuilt the dam in sturdier stone, and though the great flood of 1936 swept nearly everything away, the dam itself endured.