Lemon-Edens House
Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Corsicana resident A. L. Lemon built this home in 1895 of Louisiana cypress. In 1902 it was sold to John Wesley Edens. The owner of 2400 acres of local farm and ranch land, Edens had served the area as deputy sheriff, tax collector, and city councilman. The late Victorian style house, which features some Eastlake and Queen Anne detailing, remained in the Edens family for more than forty years. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1983
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Corsicana resident A. L. Lemon built this house in 1895 of Louisiana cypress, and in 1902 sold it to John Wesley Edens, a substantial landowner who farmed and ranched 2,400 acres and served locally as deputy sheriff, tax collector, and city councilman. The late Victorian home, dressed with Eastlake and Queen Anne detailing, stayed in the Edens family for more than forty years. It stands as a well-preserved example of the ornate domestic architecture that flourished in prospering Texas towns of the Gilded Age.
Why it matters
Homes like this map the rise of a rural gentry in Reconstruction-era Texas, whose land and civic offices made them the backbone of small-town life.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · A. L. Lemon
- · John Wesley Edens
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Methodist Church
Corsicana, TX
Founded in 1851 on the Texas frontier, this Methodist congregation built its sanctuary in 1871, and the following year hosted the State Democratic Convention that laid plans to end Reconstruction rule in Texas. The church also organized what it claims as the first missionary society west of the Mississippi in 1880, and ordained H. A. Boaz, who rose to lead Polytechnic College and SMU before becoming a bishop. Its story weaves together frontier religion, Reconstruction-era politics, and the growth of Methodist education.
First Baptist Church of Corsicana
Corsicana, TX
Organized in 1848 as the United Baptist Church under pioneer preacher Noah Turner Byars, this Corsicana congregation counted early Texas Baptist leaders like Judge R.E.B. Baylor and the Rev. Z.N. Morrell among those present at its founding. Members worshiped first in a shared community building, then a vacant store, before settling at this site in 1901. Its pulpit produced figures of national reach, including W.B. Bagby, the first Southern Baptist missionary to Brazil.
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Corsicana, TX
In 1853 the Rev. John Patton and about twenty Cumberland Presbyterians organized Corsicana's first church, in the years when the town was still a young frontier settlement. Over the following decades several distinct Presbyterian bodies took root, split, and realigned, until in 1949 they merged into Westminster Presbyterian Church. The Bethel Mexican congregation joined in 1968, adding another strand to the church's history.
Jose Antonio Navarro
Corsicana, TX
José Antonio Navarro was a San Antonio–born statesman who bridged Spanish, Mexican, and Texan governments across a revolutionary generation, serving in the legislature of Coahuila and Texas and then signing the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. He went on to help write the state constitution and sit in the Texas Senate, and he lent his name both to Navarro County and to Corsicana, which he called after his father's native Corsica. This 1936 centennial marker honors a rare native-born Tejano leader of the Republic.