Parker-Davis House, 1890
Glen Rose, Somervell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built by James T. Parker, a Confederate veteran who in a 42-day wagon trip moved from Tennessee to Texas in 1871. Taught, farmed, served as county commissioner. Native limestone, quarried nearby. 18" walls. Modernized 1964 by Wm. C. Davis, Jr. family. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
James T. Parker, a Confederate veteran, made a 42-day wagon journey from Tennessee to Texas in 1871 and settled into a life of teaching, farming, and public service as county commissioner. In 1890 he built this sturdy house of native limestone quarried nearby, its walls a full eighteen inches thick. The Davis family modernized the home in 1964, and it stands as a recorded historic landmark.
Why it matters
The house reflects the postwar southern migration to Texas and the durable stone homesteads that resettled veterans built as they rebuilt their lives.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The 1870s in Texas were shaped by the aftermath of the Civil War. Across the defeated South, families faced ruined economies, upended lives, and hard choices about whether to rebuild where they were or start over somewhere new. For many, the answer lay west — in Texas, where land was more available and a fresh start seemed possible.
This was the era of Reconstruction and the great postwar migration, when Confederate veterans and their families loaded wagons and made long overland journeys to resettle. It was slow, grinding travel, measured not in hours but in weeks, across country that offered little comfort along the way.
The people who made those journeys were not looking for adventure so much as for a foothold. They came to farm, to teach, to build, and to take part in the civic life of new communities. The sturdy stone homes some of them raised were statements of intent: they meant to stay.
People & events
James T. Parker was one of those resettlers. A Confederate veteran, he made the move from Tennessee to Texas in 1871 — a wagon journey of forty-two days. Sit with that number for a moment: six weeks on the road, at the pace of a wagon, to reach a new home and an unknown future.
Once here, Parker built a life of usefulness. He taught. He farmed. And he served his county as a commissioner, taking a hand in the public business of his community. His was the kind of steady, rooted contribution that turned raw settlement into lasting society.
In 1890 he built this house from native limestone quarried nearby, with walls a full eighteen inches thick — stone drawn from the very ground he had chosen to settle. Generations later, in 1964, the family of Wm. C. Davis, Jr. modernized the home, carrying it forward into a new era while keeping its stout stone bones intact.
Its place in the American story
Parker's house is a small, solid piece of one of the largest movements in American history: the resettlement of the postwar South. Thousands of families made journeys like his, and their migration reshaped Texas and the wider West, populating new counties with people determined to rebuild lives the war had disrupted.
The house also speaks to how those newcomers built. Rather than throw up something temporary, Parker quarried local limestone and laid walls thick enough to last generations — the architecture of people who intended permanence. Homes like this, built from the stone underfoot, tell you as much about a settler's ambitions as any written record.
And Parker's public service points to the deeper work of resettlement. Migration was not only about claiming land; it was about knitting new communities together — schools, farms, and county government. A veteran who taught, farmed, and served as commissioner embodies how the frontier became a settled society one useful life at a time.
If you visit
When you reach Glen Rose, look closely at the stone. This house is built of native limestone quarried nearby, and its walls run a remarkable eighteen inches thick — put your mind against that mass and you understand instantly that this was made to endure.
Let the number forty-two settle in as you stand there: forty-two days by wagon from Tennessee to Texas. Every stone in these walls represents a decision by a man who had already traveled six hard weeks to get here and then chose to build something that would outlast him.
The house was modernized in the 1960s, so you are looking at a home that has been lived in and cared for across the generations, not a frozen relic. That is part of its charm on a Texas Hill Country drive — a genuine survivor of the postwar migration, standing quietly in a landscape full of stories about the people who came west to begin again.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · James T. Parker
- · Wm. C. Davis, Jr.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lanham Mill Community
Glen Rose, TX
After coming to Texas from Tennessee around 1870, William and Mary Lanham settled where the Paluxy River meets White Bluff Creek and helped petition the state to carve out Somervell County. By 1877 Lanham ran a grist mill on the Paluxy, adding a cotton gin a few years later, and a rural community of farms, churches, a school, and a cemetery grew up around the works until fire destroyed the operation in 1898. The settlement slowly faded, and today only the Lanham Mill Cemetery marks where it stood.
Booker Home
Glen Rose, TX
This limestone home was built in the early 1870s by William G. McCamant, an early Texan who had helped bring Somervell County into being and served as one of its first commissioners. In 1896 it passed to Civil War veteran George L. Booker during his long 36-year run as county surveyor. Its eighteen-inch stone walls and end chimneys are hallmarks of frontier-era construction.
John W. Bull Stone House
Tolar, TX
Tennessee-born John W. Bull came to Texas in 1853, preempted land here in 1861 within sight of Comanche Peak, and in 1865 took part in the Dove Creek fight against Kickapoo people migrating through the region. After his land grant was approved, he hired mason Pat Gannon to build this stone house from a nearby quarry, chiseling the date "March 17, 1872" into the chimney. It stands as one of the area's earliest masonry homes on what was then the Texas frontier.
Mineral Springs Primitive Baptist Church
Glen Rose, TX
Founded in 1886 by Elder Wilson Hufner and W. L. Rogers in the community of Post Oak, this Primitive Baptist congregation joined with fifteen neighboring churches in 1899 to form the Duffau Association, the largest of its kind in Texas. Its meeting house was relocated to this site around 1920, and in the mid-1950s the grounds became home to a summer youth camp. The present sanctuary was moved here in 1960.