Rembert-Harrison House
Longview, Gregg County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Frank Taylor Rembert (1853-1926) was born in Copiah County, Mississippi. In 1872 he came to Texas, where he had relatives and a job with the Houston & Great Northern Railroad in Crockett. While working in Scottsville, he met Kate Womack, and the two married in 1878. The couple moved to Longview, where they bought a cottage already on this site. Frank became a prominent merchant and investor, operating the firm of Mayfield, Rembert, and company (later F. T. Rembert Mercantile Company) with his brothers-in-law and owning a Cotton Oil Mill, bank, and several commercial buildings. He was mayor of Longview from 1896 to 1898. Since Frank’s death in 1926, the Remberts’ nephew, John Womack Harrison, and his family have continued to live in the house. The original Queen Anne-Style cottage was built between 1877 and 1879. In about 1895, inspired by his 1893 trip to the world’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Frank Rembert remodeled the exterior, removing elaborate spindle work and adding ionic columns and other classical revival elements. The wood frame house with original siding and double-hung wood sash windows features an asymmetrical façade dominated by a wraparound front porch. Historic interior elements include two red brick chimneys, original fireplaces, bulls-eye trim and other woodwork details. In about 1912, a detached garage and concrete driveway were added to the property. These accommodated the Buick which Rembert purchased between 1910 and 1912, believed to be one of the first automobiles in Longview. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2013
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Frank Taylor Rembert came to Texas from Mississippi in 1872, working for the railroad before marrying Kate Womack and settling in Longview. He became a leading merchant and investor—running a mercantile firm, a cotton oil mill, and a bank—and served as mayor from 1896 to 1898. Around 1895, inspired by the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, he remodeled the couple's 1870s cottage with Classical Revival columns, and around 1912 added a garage for one of Longview's first automobiles.
Why it matters
The house captures the rise of a Gilded Age merchant class and the material changes—from world's-fair fashion to the automobile—that transformed small Texas cities.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Longview came into its own in the decades after the Civil War, as railroads knit East Texas into the wider American economy. Towns that had been crossroads became commercial hubs, and a generation of ambitious newcomers arrived to build businesses, banks, and fine homes. The Rembert-Harrison House belongs to that rising world.
This was the era historians call the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era — a time of booming trade, new fortunes, cotton money, and rapid change in how Americans lived. In a growing Texas town, a successful merchant could become a pillar of the community within a single generation.
The house on this site tracks that transformation in wood and brick. What began as a modest cottage grew, over the years, into the residence of one of Longview's leading families — a physical record of a small city coming of age.
People & events
Frank Taylor Rembert was born in Copiah County, Mississippi, in 1853, and came to Texas in 1872 with relatives and a job on the Houston & Great Northern Railroad at Crockett. While working in Scottsville he met Kate Womack, and the two married in 1878. They settled in Longview and bought a cottage that already stood on this spot.
From there Rembert built a career that touched nearly every part of the town's economy. With his brothers-in-law he ran a mercantile firm that grew into the F. T. Rembert Mercantile Company, and he came to own a cotton oil mill, a bank, and several commercial buildings. From 1896 to 1898 he served as mayor of Longview, and after his death in 1926 his nephew, John Womack Harrison, and family carried the household forward.
The house itself tells his story. Built between 1877 and 1879 as a Queen Anne–style cottage, it was reshaped around 1895 after Rembert's 1893 visit to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Inspired by what he saw, he stripped away the elaborate spindle work and added ionic columns and other classical revival touches. Around 1912 he added a detached garage and concrete driveway for an automobile he had bought a year or two earlier — believed to be one of the first in Longview.
Its place in the American story
The Rembert-Harrison House is a case study in the rise of the American merchant class after the Civil War. All across the country, men who arrived with little parlayed hard work, family connections, and the reach of the railroads into diversified local empires of stores, mills, and banks. Rembert's climb from railroad employee to mayor is that national pattern rendered in one East Texas life.
The home's very woodwork records how national culture reached into small cities. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago dazzled millions and helped spread a taste for classical, columned architecture; Rembert brought that fashion home and remodeled his cottage to match it. A world's fair changed the face of a house in Longview.
And then came the automobile. The garage and driveway built around 1912 mark the exact moment the car began to remake American daily life. In the space of one family's tenure, the property moved from spindled Victorian cottage to classical revival home with a place to park one of the town's first cars — a compact history of how Americans lived, and how fast it all changed.
If you visit
This is a private home — the same family named on the marker has lived here across generations — so enjoy it from the street and give the residents their privacy. There are no tours and no interior to visit; the pleasure is in reading the architecture from the sidewalk.
Look for the story written on the façade. The wraparound front porch, the classical columns, the original wood siding and double-hung windows, and the two brick chimneys all reward a slow, respectful look. Picture the earlier spindle-work cottage underneath, and the 1890s remodel layered over it.
Don't miss the detached garage and driveway at the side, small but historically loud: they were built for one of Longview's first automobiles. On a tour of the town's heritage, this house is a fine place to see how a Gilded Age merchant family lived — and how world's-fair taste and the coming of the car reshaped a single East Texas address.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Frank Taylor Rembert
- · Kate Womack Rembert
- · John Womack Harrison
Themes & tags
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