HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Old Cook Home

Burnet, Burnet County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Built 1873 in Victorian style, with large bay window, solid walnut staircase, three fireplaces; was remodeled but retains original floor plan. House was bought 1890 by Judge J. G. Cook, a noted lawyer, and remained in Cook family several generations. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1968

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Built in 1873, this Victorian home boasted a large bay window, a solid walnut staircase, and three fireplaces, and though later remodeled it kept its original floor plan. In 1890 it was bought by Judge J.G. Cook, a noted lawyer, and stayed in the Cook family for generations. It stands as a fine example of the substantial homes prominent citizens built in early Burnet.

Why it matters

The homes of frontier judges and lawyers marked the arrival of law, order, and permanence in newly settled Texas towns.

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Related people

  • ยท Judge J. G. Cook

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Nearby & related markers

General Adam R. Johnson

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Adam Rankin Johnson made his name as a Confederate cavalry raider, riding with Nathan Bedford Forrest before commanding his own Partisan Rangers on daring strikes behind Union lines in Kentucky and Indiana โ€” including the audacious capture of Newburgh with a dozen men and a fake 'cannon' made from a stovepipe. Blinded by a gunshot wound in 1864, he returned to Burnet County and, sightless, became one of frontier Texas's great builders: a mail contractor, surveyor, and the founder of Marble Falls, whom he championed for its water power on the Colorado River. Erected by the State of Texas in 1963 as a memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy.

Rocky Rest

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Rocky Rest was raised in 1860 from hand-hewn stone and logs, its thick walls and high windows built as much for defense as for shelter on the still-contested Texas frontier. It was the work of Adam R. Johnson, who would go on to notable Civil War service, and it stands as a rare survivor of the fortified homesteads that dotted the Hill Country. Named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1966.

George Whitaker Home

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George Whitaker, an early settler of Burnet, built this sturdy home in 1870 out of hand-hewn native rock, complete with an interior cistern to secure water in the Hill Country. When the community expanded the house in 1939, builders reused stone salvaged from the old county courthouse, folding one piece of local history into another. The result is a modest but enduring monument to frontier self-reliance.