Judge Edwin Hawes House
Wharton, Wharton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Rosa F. McCamly had this home built in 1896. In 1897 she sold it to Edwin Hawes (b. 1852), Wharton County judge in the 1870s and 1880s. Hawes had returned to this area after temporarily residing in Kerrville, where he was mayor. Here he was a large landowner and a political leader. The double galleried home was purchased in 1944 by George Rust Hawes and his wife Emily ( Prasifka), the son and daughter-in-law of Edwin and Lizzie Milburn (Rust) Hawes. (Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1982.)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1896, this double-galleried house passed the next year to Edwin Hawes, a Wharton County judge of the 1870s and 1880s who had also served as mayor of Kerrville before returning to the coastal plains. A large landowner and political leader, Hawes made the home a seat of local influence during the Gilded Age. It stayed in the Hawes family, passing to his son and daughter-in-law in 1944.
Why it matters
The home reflects the rise of the landowning, professional class that governed Texas counties in the decades after Reconstruction, when local judges were pillars of community life.
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Related people
- · Edwin Hawes
- · Rosa F. McCamly
- · George Rust Hawes
Themes & tags
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