McElroy-Severn House (Stagecoach House and Onion Creek Post Office)
Buda, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The complex that includes the McElroy-Severn House/Stagecoach House and Onion Creek Post Office occupies a 51-acre tract of land on a high bluff above a branch leading into Onion Creek, about a quarter mile east of Buda. The post office and stagecoach house served the area’s residents and people traveling on the old San Antonio road beginning in 1875. Once mail service moved to the new railroad town of Dupre (Buda) in 1880, the former station house was converted to a private residence and served as headquarters for family ranching operations for more than a century. The McElroy-Severn House (stagecoach house) is an outstanding example of a late-19th century modified center-passage dwelling. It is a five-bay, side-gabled frame dwelling with a hipped roof porch that stretches across the entire south façade. Features also include limestone chimneys plastered with concrete and interior walls framed with cedar. Several major remodeling campaigns in 1885, 1900 and 1920 have substantially enlarged the house. The adjacent 1876 one-room post office is noteworthy for its fine craftsmanship, solid limestone construction and carved stone lintels. A single door faces the rear east wing of the stagecoach house and a small, single-pane window is cut out of its east wall. Other historic resources on site include a brick and limestone well, a concrete trough and concrete walkways and gardens. Together, these buildings recall Buda’s beginnings as a collection of isolated homesteads scattered along Onion Creek and reflect a century of Buda’s agricultural heritage.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On a bluff above Onion Creek, the McElroy-Severn complex began in 1875 as a stagecoach house and post office serving travelers on the old San Antonio road. When the railroad drew mail service to the new town of Dupre — soon renamed Buda — in 1880, the station became a private home and ranch headquarters for more than a century. Its limestone post office, with carved stone lintels, and the much-remodeled center-passage house together recall Buda's scattered homestead beginnings.
Why it matters
It preserves the road-and-rail hinge on which a Texas town turned, when the coming of the railroad relocated a whole community and left the stage stop behind.
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