Lankford-Stinson House
Winnsboro, Wood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Probably built in the early 1890s for merchant and civic leader J. M. Lankford, this home was originally a one-and-one-half-story structure. It was remodeled into its current configuration in 1906, soon after it was purchased by J. A. Stinson, a Civil War veteran and father-in-law of Texas Governor James S. Hogg. The house, which remained in the Stinson family until 1956, exhibits influences of the colonial revival style in its stately columns and front portico. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This Winnsboro home was probably built in the early 1890s for merchant and civic leader J. M. Lankford, then remodeled in 1906 after Civil War veteran J. A. Stinson bought it. Stinson was father-in-law to Texas Governor James S. Hogg, and the house—kept in his family until 1956—shows Colonial Revival touches in its stately columns and front portico. It stands as a well-preserved example of small-town Texas domestic architecture from the Gilded Age.
Why it matters
Its ties to a Civil War veteran and to Governor Hogg's family root a modest East Texas town in the wider political and social currents of the postwar decades.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1890s, East Texas was a region finding its footing again. A generation after the Civil War, the Piney Woods and the rolling farm country around Wood County were being stitched into the wider world by railroads, which brought new towns, new stores, and new money. Small places like Winnsboro grew into busy trading centers, where farmers came to sell cotton and buy what they could not grow or make themselves.
That trade made merchants some of the most important people in town. They extended credit through the growing season, ran the stores that anchored Main Street, and often led churches, schools, and civic projects. A substantial house near the heart of town told everyone that its owner had arrived.
The decades on either side of 1900 were also a time of changing taste. Americans were turning away from the busy ornament of Victorian houses toward something that felt older and more orderly. The Colonial Revival style drew on the country's early history, with classical columns, balanced facades, and dignified porches. Remodeling a house in that style in 1906 put its owners squarely in step with the fashion of the day.
In Texas politics these were lively years, too. Farmers across the state were pushing back against the power of railroads and big corporations, and a lawyer and politician from this part of East Texas, James Stephen Hogg, rode that feeling all the way to the governor's office in the early 1890s.
People & events
The house began, most likely in the early 1890s, as the home of J. M. Lankford, a Winnsboro merchant and civic leader. It was then a more modest building, a story and a half tall. It is easy to picture a household shaped by the rhythms of a store: early mornings, busy harvest seasons, and a steady stream of neighbors who knew the family from behind the counter.
In the first years of the twentieth century the house changed hands. J. A. Stinson, a Civil War veteran, bought it, and in 1906 it was remodeled into the grander form you see today. Stinson belonged to the generation of Texans whose youth had been consumed by the war, and who then spent the rest of their lives building farms, families, and towns in its long aftermath.
Stinson's family carried a notable connection. His daughter Sallie had married James Stephen Hogg, who served as governor of Texas in the early 1890s and is remembered as the first governor born in Texas. Hogg built his reputation as a reformer, especially for his fight to regulate the railroads, and he had deep roots in this corner of East Texas. Through that marriage, Stinson was also grandfather to the Hogg children, including Ima Hogg, who became one of the state's great philanthropists.
The Stinson family kept the house for half a century, until 1956. That long stretch of ownership is part of why it survives with its character intact, and it is why the house carries two names: the merchant who built it, and the family who made it what it is.
Its place in the American story
Across America, the years after Reconstruction were when thousands of small towns took on the shape they still have. Railroads created or reshaped them, merchants built them up, and the houses those families built became the landmarks that still line their older streets. The Lankford-Stinson House is a clear example of that national pattern, set in East Texas.
It also shows how closely Civil War veterans were woven into American life for decades after the fighting ended. Men who had served as young soldiers became the older, settled citizens of the 1900s: property owners, church members, grandparents. Their homes are quiet reminders that the war's generation lived long into the modern age.
Finally, the house reflects a very American taste for looking backward to move forward. The Colonial Revival style spread nationwide in these years, as Americans reached for columns and porticoes that recalled the nation's founding era. Seeing that style on a merchant's house in a small Texas town shows how far and how thoroughly a national fashion could travel.
The family tie to Governor Hogg adds one more thread, linking a single household in Winnsboro to the reform politics that reshaped Texas at the turn of the century.
If you visit
Look first at the front of the house. The columns and the front portico are the heart of its 1906 makeover, and they give the house the stately, welcoming look that the Colonial Revival style was all about. Try to imagine it as the smaller, story-and-a-half home it was before the remodel, and you will see how dramatic the change must have seemed to neighbors.
This is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, but it is best to treat it as a private residence unless you know otherwise. Enjoy it from the street and respect the property.
Winnsboro makes a pleasant stop on a drive through the wooded hills and lakes of northeast Texas. A stroll through the older part of town lets you spot other homes and storefronts from the same era, and pick up the feel of a railroad-and-market town at the turn of the century.
If the Hogg connection sparks your curiosity, it is worth building a Hogg-themed route through this part of East Texas, where the governor's family story is tied to several nearby communities.
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
- · J. M. Lankford
- · J. A. Stinson
- · James S. Hogg
Themes & tags
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