Lowell Smith Home
Rio Vista, Johnson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Of pine and poplar lumber and other materials from an 1850 house acquired by John Wesley Smith, Civil War veteran and banker who came to Johnson County in 1868. Built this home 1887. Used square iron nails. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John Wesley Smith, a Civil War veteran and banker, came to Johnson County in 1868 and in 1887 built this house from pine and poplar salvaged from an 1850 dwelling, fastening it with square iron nails. The reuse of older lumber and hand-forged nails reflects the frugal, resourceful building practices of frontier Texas. The home was recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1965.
Why it matters
Modest homes like this document how Reconstruction-era veterans rebuilt their lives and communities on the Texas prairie.
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Related people
- · John Wesley Smith
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Haley-Smith Cemetery
Rio Vista, TX
Thomas Haley reached Johnson County by 1852, built a race track along the Nolands River, and bred fine horses before serving as a captain in Parson's mounted volunteers during the Civil War; he died in 1865 of battle wounds, and his is the oldest marked grave here. The cemetery also holds Leonard Fisher, another Civil War veteran, and John Hubble, a veteran of the Texas War for Independence, among the county's pioneers. Since the 1990s a cemetery association has cared for the small burial ground.
Grange Hall Cemetery
Rio Vista, TX
In the farming settlement of Nolands River, a chapter of the Grange — the national farmers' fraternal order — organized in 1874 and raised a two-story hall that doubled as school, church, and Masonic lodge. In 1878 the Kizziars gave land for a cemetery, where more than half the marked graves predate 1900 and a few early burials are marked only by rocks or bois d'arc posts. The community faded after the railroad town of Rio Vista rose nearby in the 1880s.
Menefee Reunion
Rio Vista, TX
This site marks the long-running reunion of the Menefee family, begun in 1890 and held here since 1891. Their Texas ancestor, William L. Menefee, arrived in 1830, signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836, helped choose the site of the capital at Austin, and served six terms in the Congress of the Republic. The gathering honors a lineage the marker traces back to colonists reaching America in 1623.
Henry Briden Cabin
Rio Vista, TX
German immigrant Henry Briden reached Texas in 1845 and served two years as a Texas Ranger before he and his wife Lucinda became, in 1849, the first permanent settlers in what is now Johnson County. They raised this one-room log cabin on the bank of Nolan's River; it later became a barn once Briden built a larger home. Restored and moved in 1974, the humble structure survives as the county's founding dwelling.