HistoricSiteMarkers
Progressive & Modern Era

Paul and Mahala Hackbarth House

Sealy, Austin County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Completed in 1911 for civic leaders Paul and Mahala Hackbarth, this concrete block house is an unusual example of vernacular architecture. Prominent features include a wraparound porch, Ionic columns on piers, and large wood sash windows. The Hackbarth Lumber Company, one of the earliest businesses in Sealy, promoted the use of concrete blocks for local buildings, and this house is a fine example of that construction method. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1991

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Completed in 1911 for civic leaders Paul and Mahala Hackbarth, this concrete-block house is an unusual example of vernacular architecture, with a wraparound porch, Ionic columns on piers, and large wood-sash windows. The Hackbarth Lumber Company, one of Sealy's earliest businesses, promoted concrete-block construction locally, and the family home showcased the method.

Why it matters

The house is a built advertisement for an emerging building technology, illustrating how local businesses drove the spread of new construction methods in small-town America.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • ยท Paul Hackbarth
  • ยท Mahala Hackbarth

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Citizens State Bank

Sealy, TX

Sealy grew up along the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway in the cotton-and-cattle economy of the 1880s, and in 1907 Citizens State Bank opened in a new commercial building on Main Street. Under its first president, R. A. Engelking, the bank weathered money panics and the Great Depression, emerging by the 1930s as the only bank left in town. Decades of steady growth and unusually loyal employees carried it past its centennial.

Haynes-Felcman House

Sealy, TX

Built in 1901โ€“1902 for H. Schumacher in Sealy, this Queen Anne residence passed in 1906 to Richard H. Haynes, who with his father founded the Haynes (Sealy) Mattress Company in 1909. Confectioner F. J. Felcman bought the house in 1927 and enlarged it, and it stayed in his family into the 1990s. Its projecting gable, wood shingles, stained glass, and jigsawn brackets make it a fine example of late-Victorian domestic style.

Sealy

Sealy, TX

Sealy sprang up in 1879 along the new Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad, taking its name from Galveston businessman and railroad president George Sealy. A depot, roundhouse, turntable, and machine shops made it a busy division point between Galveston and Temple, with the railroad as its chief employer and trains rumbling through daily. When the division point moved to Bellville in 1899, Sealy leaned on cotton, additional rail lines, and diversified business to keep thriving, incorporating in 1949.

Preibisch Building

Sealy, TX

German immigrant Adolph Preibisch reached Austin County in 1860 and, after the railroad town of Sealy grew up, hired mason John Colleton to build this brick commercial block in 1886-1887 from local Brazos River clay. Preibisch sold furniture and household goods โ€” and, like many early dealers, made and sold funeral caskets. Over the decades the building housed a grocery, jeweler, and even a saloon-pool hall called "My Place" used in early films, staying in the family until 1946.