Stoddard-Collins House
Goliad, Goliad County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A significant element in Goliad's architectural history, this house is one of the city's oldest structures. Although the exact date of construction has not been proven, documentary, architectural, and archeological evidence suggest it was built prior to 1847, perhaps as early as the 1820s. Pioneer settler Jessie W. Stoddard bought the property in 1847. It was sold in 1879 to Artie Holliday Collins, wife of cattle rancher Joseph Collins. The house, which reflects several phases of construction including a 1930s board-and-batten addition, remained in the Collins Family until 1906.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
One of Goliad's oldest buildings, this house may date to the 1820s and was certainly standing before pioneer settler Jessie W. Stoddard bought the property in 1847. Sold in 1879 to the wife of a local cattle rancher, it stayed in that family into the next century and still shows the layered additions of successive owners.
Why it matters
Surviving structures like this one preserve the everyday architectural fabric of one of Texas's earliest Anglo and Tejano settlements.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Goliad is one of the oldest places in Texas. Long before this house was built, the Spanish had established a mission and a presidio here, and the settlement around them, known as La Bahía, grew into a key community of Spanish and later Mexican Texas. The town took the name Goliad in the Mexican era.
The house may have been standing as early as the 1820s. If so, it dates to the period when Texas was part of newly independent Mexico, and when Tejano families and Anglo-American settlers were both making lives in the region. That was a time of cultural mixing, and also of rising tension that eventually broke out in the Texas Revolution.
Goliad was at the center of that conflict. In 1836 the town saw one of the darkest episodes of the war, the execution of hundreds of Texian prisoners, which became a rallying cry for independence. A house that may predate those events has witnessed the whole turbulent story of how Texas became Texas.
By 1847, when the property changed hands, Texas had joined the United States. Later in the century South Texas became famous cattle country, and ranching families like the Collinses shaped the economy and the character of the region.
People & events
The story of this house is the story of the people who owned it and changed it over the years. Its exact construction date isn't known. Documents, the building's own architecture, and archeological evidence all suggest it was standing before 1847, perhaps by the 1820s. Hedging on the date is honest. It reflects how carefully historians have to piece together the history of old buildings.
In 1847 the property was bought by Jessie W. Stoddard, a pioneer settler of the Goliad area. The marker doesn't give many details about Stoddard's life, so it's best not to invent them. The purchase does place Stoddard among the settlers who put down roots in Goliad in the years just after Texas became a state.
In 1879 the property passed to Artie Holliday Collins, the wife of cattle rancher Joseph Collins. It is notable that the sale was made to her. The house became the Collins family home and stayed with them until 1906, spanning the years when cattle ranching was reshaping South Texas.
The building itself records all this history. It shows several phases of construction, including a board-and-batten addition from the 1930s. Each owner adapted it to their own needs, so the house is less a single moment frozen in time than a layered record of changing lives and tastes.
Its place in the American story
America's grand historic sites get most of the attention, but ordinary houses like this one carry just as much of the national story. They show how people actually lived: how they built with the materials they had, how they expanded their homes as families grew, and how a property passed down through generations.
This house is especially meaningful because of where it stands. Goliad connects the Spanish colonial era, Mexican Texas, the Texas Revolution, and early statehood, all chapters that shaped the American Southwest. A building that may reach back to the 1820s links those eras in a single structure.
The Collins family's ownership ties the house to the rise of the cattle industry, one of the defining economic stories of the American West. South Texas ranching helped feed a growing nation and gave rise to the enduring image of the cowboy.
Finally, the house is a reminder that historic preservation often depends on careful detective work. Historians and archeologists pieced together its likely age from several kinds of evidence. That patient work shows how Americans recover the past when the paperwork is incomplete.
If you visit
Treat this as a historic home. Unless the site offers public access, view it from the street and respect the privacy of anyone who lives or works there. Much of what makes it interesting can be seen from outside.
Look at how the building shows its different phases. Try to pick out the older sections and the later additions, including the board-and-batten work from the 1930s, which uses vertical boards with narrow strips covering the seams. Reading a building this way is a small, satisfying skill, and it turns a quick look into a lesson in architectural history.
Goliad rewards a longer visit. The town is home to some of the most important historic sites in Texas, including the Spanish-era mission and presidio sites connected to its early history. Pairing this house with those places helps you see how the town grew across the centuries.
This stop fits well into a road trip through South Texas history and the Coastal Bend, and it works for families and history lovers alike. Take a slow walk through town, since some of Goliad's charm lies in its older buildings, which quietly outlasted the eras around them.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Jessie W. Stoddard
- · Artie Holliday Collins
- · Joseph Collins
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Don Rafael Antonio Manchola
Goliad, TX
Born around 1800 to a Spanish family, Rafael Antonio Manchola came to La Bahía in 1822 and married into the powerful de León family, empresarios of the region. He rose to command the presidio, served as alcalde, and sat in the legislature of Coahuila and Texas, where he championed separate statehood, corresponded with Stephen F. Austin, and even secured the town's renaming from La Bahía to Goliad. He died of cholera in 1833, and years later his de León kin were driven from Texas by anti-Mexican sentiment during the Revolution.
Regulators of Goliad County
Goliad, TX
When the Civil War ended, South Texas ranch country dissolved into lawlessness, with wild cattle running unbranded and federal occupation troops unable to check the thieving and violence. In 1868 the Union commander appointed Jack Helm as a special marshal, and he raised a vigilante band of some fifty ranchers—the Regulators—based at Middletown, now Weesatche. They pursued suspected outlaws ruthlessly, ordering many to leave the state and shooting those who defied them without trial, until reorganized Texas Rangers and the passage of time finally restored order in the 1870s.
Goliad County Courthouse
Goliad, TX
Completed in 1894 for just under $68,000, Goliad's fourth courthouse reused limestone and brick from an 1870 predecessor, standing as the seat of a county born with the Republic of Texas in 1836. It sheltered the injured after a devastating 1902 cyclone, lost its central clock tower to a 1942 storm, and was enlarged in 1964 with its carved staircases and walnut wainscoting preserved.
The Hanging Tree
Goliad, TX
For decades in the mid-1800s, this Goliad tree served as an open-air courthouse where sentences were carried out on the spot with rope and a handy limb. Its darkest chapter came during the 1857 "Cart War," when Texas freighters violently attacked Mexican teamsters hauling goods along the road between the coast and San Antonio, a spasm of ethnic and economic violence that killed dozens before the Texas Rangers intervened.