Lorenzo Dow Heaton Home
Victoria, Victoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Lorenzo Dow Heaton House is located across the street from what was once Market Square. Lorenzo D. Heaton was born in 1839 in New York and came to Texas at the age of fifteen. His older brother, John, operated a drug store in Port Lavaca and L.D. worked as a clerk in the store. A third brother, David, came to Texas and opened and managed Heaton Bros. in Cuero. In 1870, L.D. married Mary "Mollie" Virginia Randall and the couple moved to Victoria and opened another Heaton Bros. Pharmacy. The Heaton's purchased the slot in 1875 and, by 1877, the original portion of the house was completed. Constructed with hand-hewn lumber and square nails, this home was the first large home to be constructed on the Plaza del Mercado. The original house was a two-story structure with four rooms and a kitchen. Between the late 1870s and the 1890s, additions were made to the home and included porches and fireplaces. In 1892, Heaton's wife, Molly, passed away. Two years later, he married Susie George from Port Lavaca. Heaton continued to manage Heaton Bros. Pharmacy. On March 19, 1907, L.D. passed away. Susie lived in the house and worked at the drug store until her unexpected death three months later. The property was sold to the Koch family and the home became a rooming house. When the Kreuger family purchased the home in 1943, the second-floor porch was removed and the square porch columns were enlarged. The home's architecture is Southern Colonial with lofty porch pillars and a Georgian front entrance. This historic home is one of the few remaining structures in Victoria from the 1870s and is valued as one of the city's most treasured historic residences. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Lorenzo Dow Heaton came to Texas from New York as a boy, clerked in his brother's Port Lavaca drug store, and by 1870 had opened a Heaton Bros. pharmacy of his own in Victoria. He built this house facing the old Market Square in the late 1870s from hand-hewn lumber and square nails, expanding it with porches and fireplaces over two decades. Its Southern Colonial pillars and Georgian entrance make it one of the very few Victoria homes surviving from that era.
Why it matters
As one of Victoria's last standing residences from the 1870s, the house preserves the texture of a Gilded-Age Texas merchant town and the family enterprises that anchored it.
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Related people
- · Lorenzo Dow Heaton
- · Mary Virginia Randall Heaton
Themes & tags
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