Kirby-Hill House
Kountze, Hardin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Designed by Frank T. Smith of Beaumont and built in 1902, this was the home of James L. (1844-1922) and Martha Slater (1840-1907) Kirby. James Kirby was superintendent of the Kirby Lumber Company, founded by his brother John Henry Kirby. Most of the home's materials came from the Kirby Mills. Colonial revival and Victorian stylistic features include vertical siding, 48 pillars, curved walls, and six shingled gable ends. The house was inherited by the Kirby's daughter Lucy and her husband Austin M. Hill, Sr. Their descendants lived here until 1990. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1998
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1902 and designed by Beaumont architect Frank T. Smith, this house was the home of James L. Kirby, superintendent of the Kirby Lumber Company founded by his brother, timber magnate John Henry Kirby. Fittingly, most of its materials came from the Kirby mills, and its blend of Colonial Revival and Victorian styling includes 48 pillars, curved walls, and six shingled gables. Kirby descendants lived in the house until 1990, and it was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1998.
Why it matters
The house stands as a monument to the East Texas lumber boom, when vast pine forests and companies like Kirby's drove the region's economy and built its towns.
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Related people
- · James L. Kirby
- · John Henry Kirby
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hooks Abstract Company
Kountze, TX
Founded in 1902 and named for its chief investor J.B. Hooks, this firm is thought to be Hardin County's oldest continuously operating business. It began by researching land titles for the oil and timber companies then carving up the Big Thicket country, later adding title insurance in the 1950s under the McKim family, who ran it across three generations. The name eventually became Hooks Title and Abstract Co.
First Baptist Church of Silsbee
Silsbee, TX
First Baptist Church of Silsbee began in 1903 in a most fitting place for a booming East Texas rail-and-sawmill town: a railroad car. Formally organized in 1908, the congregation soon gained land and lumber from timber baron John Henry Kirby and grew alongside the community, weathering name changes, new sanctuaries, and even hurricanes Rita and Ike. For more than a century it has remained a fixture of Silsbee life.
First United Methodist Church of Silsbee
Silsbee, TX
Methodist worship reached Silsbee in 1901 when the place was a company town built around the lumber and railroad empire of John Henry Kirby. The earliest Sunday School classes met in an old passenger coach parked on a railroad siding, served by circuit-riding preachers, before charter members formally organized the church in 1904. Through donated land, borrowed halls, and repeated rebuilding after fires, the congregation grew alongside the town it helped anchor.
200 Feet North to Site of Hardin County Discovery Well
Saratoga, TX
In 1901—the same year Spindletop announced the Texas oil age—Ben Hooks and his brothers brought in the first oil well in Hardin County at a depth of 995 feet just north of this site. The strike sparked a boom town, first called "New Sour Lake" and later renamed Saratoga after the famous New York spa resort. It was one of the gushers that turned the Big Thicket country into an early frontier of the petroleum industry.