Stafford-Paris House
Pittsburg, Camp County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This Victorian residence with ornate gingerbread woodwork was built in 1899 for the family of Eugene Fore. In 1913 it was sold to Camp County Sheriff J. D. Stafford, who lived here for 24 years. Dr. Ernest Paris, a prominent local chiropractor, and his wife Margret, bought the home in 1941. Other community leaders who resided here include Dr. R. Y. Lacy and Dr. R. C. Treynham, whose wife Cora was the stepdaughter of W. H. Pitts, for whom the town was named. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This ornate Victorian home, trimmed with gingerbread woodwork, was built in 1899 for Eugene Fore's family in the East Texas town of Pittsburg. Over the decades it passed through a succession of local notables, including Camp County Sheriff J. D. Stafford, who lived here for 24 years, and the chiropractor Dr. Ernest Paris. Its residents' ties reached back to W. H. Pitts, the man for whom the town itself was named.
Why it matters
Homes like this trace the emergence of a settled civic class in small-town Texas at the turn of the twentieth century, when doctors, sheriffs, and founding families anchored community life.
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Related people
- · J. D. Stafford
- · Ernest Paris
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pitts Family Cemetery
Pittsburg, TX
This burying ground was begun by William Harrison Pitts, the founder of Pittsburg, with the 1862 grave of his wife Sarah. The Pitts family had left their Georgia plantations to reestablish themselves on the Texas frontier in the mid-nineteenth century, and the plot soon held a Confederate corporal, Pitts's mother, and several of his siblings. Their arrival helped shape the young community of Camp County.
William Harrison Pitts
Pittsburg, TX
Georgia-born William Harrison Pitts moved his plantation household to this corner of East Texas by 1854, bought land, and built a home around which a settlement gathered — earning the new post office the name "Pittsburg." A shrewd civic promoter, he set aside acreage for the town and in 1874 offered $50 toward a courthouse, tipping the election that made Pittsburg the seat of newly organized Camp County. By 1880 the railroad junction town numbered 750 people.
Shootout at the Pittsburg Depot
Pittsburg, TX
On February 10, 1885, a tangled domestic dispute among George "Dallas" Smart, his wife Annie, and U.S. Army Lt. John W. Heard boiled over into a public confrontation at the Pittsburg railroad depot. As Heard prepared to leave town, a struggle egged on by the gathered crowd ended with Heard shooting and killing Smart. A county judge ruled it self-defense the next day, and after later clearing himself in a court-martial and another trial, Heard went on to a distinguished military career. Annie remarried and died in New Mexico Territory in 1900.
Pittsburg
Pittsburg, TX
Anglo settlement of this corner of East Texas began in the 1850s, and the family of W. H. Pitts arrived from Georgia in 1854, soon joined by other newcomers from the southern states. Pitts donated land for a townsite that took his name, and when Camp County was organized from Upshur County in 1874, Pittsburg became its seat of government. Two railroad lines reached the area by 1880, the town incorporated in 1891, and it has remained the commercial and cultural hub of the county ever since.