Price-Farwell House

🏛️The era

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Texas Gulf Coast was being remade by two forces: railroads and promoters. Land companies bought up stretches of open prairie and coastline, platted streets on paper, and advertised them far and wide to farmers, investors, and families looking for a fresh start. Palacios was one of these planned towns. In 1901 the Palacios City Townsite Company began selling lots for a new "City by the Sea" laid out along the shore of Tres Palacios Bay.

A town like this needed a rail connection to survive, and Palacios got one quickly. In 1904 the New York, Texas & Mexican Railway built a line into town. Visitors and new residents could now arrive easily, and so could lumber, goods, and the materials for building a community.

Within about ten years Palacios had become home to the Texas Baptist Encampment and was advertised as a health resort. This fit a national trend. Americans of that era believed strongly in the healing power of fresh air, sunshine, and the seashore, and a bayfront town could sell itself on its breezes as well as its building lots.

The era's houses were changing as well. Across the country, the tall, heavily decorated Victorian house was falling out of fashion. In its place came the bungalow, a simpler, more practical home suited to middle-class families. The Price-Farwell House was built right at the moment that change reached the Texas coast.

👥People & events

In 1906 John T. Price, a lumberman, moved from Tennessee to the young town of Palacios with his wife, Opal Dean (Cates) Price. A lumberman had good reason to come. A new town is built board by board, and Palacios was growing. The Prices built their home at the corner of Fifth and Duson streets, where it looked out over Tres Palacios Bay.

The family lived there until 1920. That year Howard Bradford Farwell and his wife, Mary Estelle, bought the house. Instead of buying a lot to go with it, they moved the house three blocks to the spot where it stands today. Moving a whole house was a big undertaking, but it was not unheard of in that period, when a sturdy wood-frame building was too valuable to abandon.

H.B. Farwell had a close tie to the town's beginnings. He came to Palacios in 1905 to manage the Palacios City Townsite Company, the business that had started selling the town's lots only a few years earlier. He went on to become a prominent local business leader. The man who had helped sell Palacios to newcomers ended up living in one of its early homes.

The Farwell family owned the property until 1946. Later owners included Amos and Helen (Gilbert) Duffy and then Nelle Elizabeth Kimball. Each family kept the house in use, and in 2004 it was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

Palacios tells a story repeated across America around 1900. Towns did not always grow slowly around a crossroads. Many were invented by companies, advertised in newspapers, and brought to life by a railroad. The Townsite Company, the rail line, the religious encampment, and the health-resort advertising together show how a planned American town was built and sold.

The house itself marks a major change in how ordinary Americans lived. The bungalow became one of the most popular house types of the early twentieth century. Homes like this were often put up by contractors working from standard plans or pattern books. The owners then chose the interior details and finishes. Good design became affordable for families who could never have hired an architect.

The Price-Farwell House also shows how builders mixed styles. Its classical columns and balanced front come from the Neoclassical tradition. Its practical bungalow shape belongs to the Arts and Crafts movement, which valued simplicity, good workmanship, and comfortable living. A house that blends both is a snapshot of American taste in transition.

🧭If you visit

Look for the features that define this house. Notice the pyramid-shaped roof, the single dormer facing the street from the middle of the roof, and the classical columns along the porch. The front is symmetrical, and the porch is divided into three bays. Look at the windows too. Their multi-pane patterns are a signature detail of the period.

Remember that the house is no longer where it was built. It started out three blocks away at Fifth and Duson, overlooking the bay. As you stand here, try to picture it being lifted and hauled through the streets of a town that was then less than twenty years old.

This is a private home, so please enjoy it from the sidewalk and respect the owners' privacy. Then walk on toward Tres Palacios Bay. The water and the breezes are what the town's promoters sold to their first buyers, and a stroll along the shore helps you see why the "City by the Sea" drew settlers and vacationers alike.

Palacios makes a good stop on a trip along the middle Texas coast, especially if you enjoy small bay towns and early twentieth-century architecture.