"Straddle-Fork"
Broaddus, San Augustine County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Rebuilt 1875 by early Texas leader Jacob Herring, from wood in his original 1836 home. Dog-trot plan. Heart pine in floors and hand-planed, paneled ceilings. Pediment trim on doors and windows. Molded wood wainscot. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Early Texas leader Jacob Herring rebuilt this dog-trot house in 1875 using heart-pine timber salvaged from his original 1836 home—the very year of Texas independence. Its hand-planed paneled ceilings, molded wainscot, and pedimented trim reflect the craftsmanship of a settler generation making permanence out of the frontier. The house was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1965.
Why it matters
A house built from the wood of a founder's first Texas home is a tangible thread linking the Republic's earliest days to the settled communities that followed.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The original home that went into this house was built in 1836, one of the most dramatic years in Texas history. That was the year Texas declared independence from Mexico and won it on the battlefield, becoming an independent republic. San Augustine County, deep in East Texas near the Louisiana border, was among the earliest areas of Anglo-American settlement in Texas. Many newcomers arrived along the old roads leading in from the United States.
Life in that era was lived in log and timber houses built from whatever the forest provided. East Texas was rich in longleaf and other pines, and settlers relied on the dense, resin-rich heartwood of old trees, known as heart pine, because it was strong and resisted rot and insects.
By 1875, when this house was rebuilt, Texas had been a republic, joined the United States, gone through the Civil War, and was coming out of Reconstruction. Rebuilding a home in that decade meant settling in for good. The frontier years were giving way to a more permanent, rooted way of life.
People & events
The central figure here is Jacob Herring, whom the marker calls an early Texas leader. His first home in this area went up in 1836. Nearly forty years later, in 1875, he rebuilt it, not from new lumber but from the wood of that original house. The marker doesn't give the details of his public career, and it would be wrong to fill them in. What it does tell us is revealing: here was a man who kept the timbers of his first Texas home and gave them a second life.
The rebuilt house followed the dog-trot plan, a classic Southern layout. Two rooms, or pens, sit under one roof with an open, covered breezeway between them. In a hot, humid climate the breezeway pulled cooling air through the house and gave the family a shady place to work, eat, and rest.
The finish work shows real care. There are heart pine floors and ceilings that were planed by hand and paneled. Doors and windows are topped with pediment trim, the triangular, classically inspired detail more often found on finer homes. The walls are lined with molded wood wainscot. These touches turned a practical frontier floor plan into a house with dignity and polish. In 1965 it was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. The marker doesn't explain the name "Straddle-Fork," so its origin is a small mystery left to the visitor.
Its place in the American story
The dog-trot house is one of the great American vernacular building forms. It spread across the Upland South and into Texas as settlers moved west, carrying a building tradition that suited both their tools and their climate. A surviving example like this one keeps that pattern of migration visible on the landscape.
The house also tells a wider story about how frontier communities grew up. The same timbers that sheltered a family in the year of Texas independence were reused in a more refined home a generation later. That is the arc of American settlement in miniature: rough beginnings followed by permanence, investment, and pride of place.
Preservation programs such as the Recorded Texas Historic Landmark designation reflect the twentieth-century recognition that ordinary homes, not just courthouses and battlefields, carry the nation's history. This house earned that recognition because it holds the story of a family, a building tradition, and an era in its very walls.
If you visit
This marker stands in the Broaddus area of San Augustine County, in the heart of the East Texas piney woods. The setting is green and wooded, with the slower rhythm of small-town and rural Texas. It's well worth driving slowly through this part of the state.
If the house can be seen from a public place, look for the features the marker highlights. Can you spot the dog-trot form, with its two sections joined under one roof? Notice the pediment trim above the doors and windows, a detail that marks this as a home built with pride rather than just necessity. Be aware that historic homes are often private residences. Enjoy the view from the road and respect the owners' privacy.
San Augustine County is among the oldest settled areas of Texas, so this stop pairs well with a broader road trip through East Texas history. There are old towns, historic churches, and markers recalling the earliest days of the Republic. Bring a sense of curiosity about how people built their lives here, one timber at a time.
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
- · Jacob Herring
Themes & tags
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