Rich Coffey House
Paint Rock, Concho County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Rich Coffey (1823-1897) was a prominent pioneer and settler in the part of the state that now encompasses Runnels and Concho counties. In 1862 Coffey moved his family, cattle, and cowboys to a site near present day Ballinger. Several years later he established a settlement at the confluence of the Colorado and Concho rivers. In addition to raising cattle, freighting, and trading in salt, Coffey served as a Coleman County commissioner, participated in the first county grand jury, and started a post office in 1879. Jonathan Cook, an Irish stonemason, was hired to build a rock house for Coffey in 1880. The house was completed in 1881 as a one-and-a-half-story dogrun structure with exterior chimneys and a staircase in the dogrun that led to a loft. Outstanding features included the quality of the masonry construction and the particular dogrun configuration which was a form common to wooden structures in Coffey's home state of Georgia, but unusual for masonry buildings in central and west Texas. In 1989 the Rich Coffey house was moved to this site to avoid inundation by the construction of nearby Lake Ivie. (1992)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Rich Coffey drove his family, cattle, and cowboys into the rugged country near present-day Ballinger in 1862 and later founded a settlement where the Colorado and Concho rivers meet. A cattleman, freighter, salt trader, county commissioner, and postmaster, he hired Irish stonemason Jonathan Cook to raise a rock house in 1880–81 — a one-and-a-half-story dogrun of unusually fine masonry, a Georgia-style floor plan rare for stone buildings in West Texas. In 1989 the house was moved to higher ground to escape the rising waters of Lake Ivie.
Why it matters
Coffey's dogrun house is a tangible record of frontier West Texas ranching and of how settlers carried the building traditions of the Old South into stone on the arid plains.
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Related people
- · Rich Coffey
- · Jonathan Cook
Themes & tags
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