The Howell-Linscomb Home
Orange, Orange County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Daniel Webster Howell (1855-1930), a carpenter and contractor, built this two-story galleried residence in 1900-03 for his wife Amanda (Sellers) (1857-1924) and their ten children. In 1918 they sold the house to Milam L. Linscomb, a local barber, and his wife Sletia. They resided here with their two children until 1927. Representative of the early days of Orange's growth as a lumber center, the ornate Victorian home features intricate gingerbread detailing. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Carpenter and contractor Daniel Webster Howell built this two-story galleried house in 1900–03 for his wife Amanda and their ten children, lavishing it with the intricate gingerbread detailing of the late Victorian style. In 1918 the family sold it to barber Milam Linscomb, and the ornate home stands as a survivor of Orange's boom years as a Southeast Texas lumber center.
Why it matters
The house reflects the prosperity the East Texas timber industry brought to towns like Orange around 1900, when sawmill wealth financed a wave of elaborate frame architecture.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Around 1900, Orange, Texas, was a town built on wood. It sits on the Sabine River at the Louisiana line, and the vast pine forests of East Texas and western Louisiana made it one of the busiest lumber towns in the region. Logs came down the river and by rail, sawmills ran constantly, and the money they made flowed into the whole community.
That boom touched everyone, not just the mill owners. Carpenters, contractors, merchants, barbers and laborers all found work in a growing town. New houses went up block by block, and the local supply of cheap, high-quality lumber made it possible to build more elaborately than in many places.
Nationally, the late Victorian period was ending. The ornate decorative styles that had spread across America during the Gilded Age were still popular in towns like Orange, helped along by machine-cut trim that let builders add fancy details at modest cost.
By the time this house changed hands in 1918, the world had changed as well. The United States was fighting in World War I, and Orange's riverfront had also become known for shipbuilding. The town's economy was moving past the pure lumber boom that had built houses like this one.
People & events
Daniel Webster Howell was a carpenter and contractor, a man who built things for a living. Between 1900 and 1903 he put his skills to work on a home for his own family: his wife, Amanda Sellers Howell, and their ten children. With a household that big, the roomy two-story house with its galleries wasn't a luxury. It was a necessity.
You can picture the place full of life: kids on the galleries, family meals at a long table, and a builder father who probably took quiet pride in every piece of trim. For a contractor, his own house was also an advertisement, showing off what his hands could do.
In 1918 the Howells sold the house to Milam L. Linscomb, a local barber, and his wife, Sletia. The Linscombs raised their two children here until 1927. A barber was a fixture of any small-town main street, and his shop was often a hub for news and conversation. His family's years here show how a house built in the boom passed into the hands of another working family.
Daniel Howell died in 1930, and Amanda died a few years before him, in 1924. Their names and the Linscombs' now share the house's title. The home was recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1981, which honors both families and the ordinary lives that give a town its character.
Its place in the American story
The American lumber industry changed the country in the late 1800s and early 1900s. As the old forests of the Northeast and Great Lakes were cut over, the industry moved south into the longleaf and loblolly pine of the Gulf states. Towns like Orange grew fast, and their prosperity was written in wood.
This house is a direct product of that shift. It was built by a local tradesman, with materials the region produced in abundance, in the decorative style Americans everywhere had come to love. It shows how a national industrial boom turned into everyday life: a family home with a gallery, gingerbread and room for ten kids.
It also reflects something very American: skilled working people could own substantial homes. A carpenter built it and a barber bought it. Neither was a lumber baron, yet both lived in a house with real architectural flair.
Houses like this are fragile survivors. Wooden Victorian homes were often lost to fire, hurricanes, neglect or redevelopment. Each one still standing keeps a piece of the story of how Gulf Coast towns grew.
If you visit
The main attraction here is the woodwork. Look closely at the gingerbread trim, the intricate decorative detail that gives Victorian houses their lacy, handmade look. Coming from a carpenter-builder, that detail is especially meaningful: it's a craftsman's work on his own home.
Notice the two stories of galleries too. Along the humid Gulf Coast, deep porches weren't just decoration. They gave shade, caught breezes and served as outdoor living rooms before air conditioning. Picture a family of twelve spilling out onto them on a summer evening.
This is a private residence setting, so enjoy it from the street and respect the property. A slow walk or drive through the surrounding older parts of Orange will help you see the house in context among the town's other surviving buildings from the lumber era.
Orange sits right at the Texas-Louisiana line on the interstate, so it makes an easy first or last stop on a Gulf Coast road trip. Pair it with other historic sites in town to get a feel for the lumber and river heritage that built this corner of Texas.
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
- · Daniel Webster Howell
- · Amanda Sellers Howell
- · Milam L. Linscomb
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jorgensen House
Orange, TX
J. K. Jorgensen, a hardware store clerk, bought this Orange lot in 1900 and built his home in an unusually thrifty way. In 1907 he detached the front porch and two rooms of a relative's house and hauled them here on wooden rollers pulled by mules, adding two more rooms behind them. The result is a modest vernacular residence dressed with Victorian porch details and tall windows.
Bland-Bazzano House
Orange, TX
John Horace Bland and his wife Edna built this home in 1902, part of a wave of turn-of-the-century residences that gave Orange its Victorian character. After passing through the Dullahan family, it was bought in 1919 by local cobbler Louis Phillip Bazzano and his wife Annie, leaders in the community and the First Baptist Church, who later conveyed it to their daughter. Its Queen Anne detailing typifies the era's domestic architecture.
West End Park
Orange, TX
For nearly eighty years West End Park was Orange's baseball ground, its wooden grandstands built to lure a professional club for spring training. Flush from a World War I shipbuilding boom, lumber heir H.I. Lutcher Stark formed an athletic association that brought the St. Louis Cardinals to town, and on February 28, 1921, fans crowded a supposedly private practice to glimpse future Hall of Famers like Branch Rickey and Rogers Hornsby. Long after the Cardinals stopped coming, local teams played on the field until it was finally leveled in 2009.
Orange Chamber of Commerce
Orange, TX
The Orange Chamber of Commerce grew from an 1887 citizens' committee formed to promote the young Sabine River city's business potential. Through a Board of Trade in 1899 and the Progressive League of Orange in 1902, civic and manufacturing leaders pursued better roads, a deep-water canal, and an opera house while courting outside investors. Consolidated into today's chamber around 1918–1922, the organization later helped draw the chemical plants that reshaped the local economy after 1947.