The Mast House
Lubbock, Lubbock County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This house was constructed in 1925 by prominent Lubbock builder A.M. Hensley for the family of Dr. Clarence S. Mast (d. 1936). Mast served as a physics professor on the original faculty of Texas Tech University. The home exhibits elements of the Colonial Revival style of architecture and features paired Doric columns on the porch. The residence was moved from its original location (one block south) in 1981. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1983
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1925 by prominent Lubbock builder A. M. Hensley, this Colonial Revival home—with its paired Doric columns—was raised for Dr. Clarence S. Mast, a physics professor on the founding faculty of Texas Tech University. Moved a block from its original site in 1981, the house survives as a reminder of the young university's earliest days.
Why it matters
The home ties a growing West Texas city to the birth of Texas Tech, whose founding faculty helped bring higher education and opportunity to the plains.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1920s Lubbock was a young, ambitious town on the South Plains of West Texas. It was growing quickly as cotton farming spread across the surrounding country. West Texans had long argued that their part of the state deserved its own college. In 1923 the Texas Legislature created Texas Technological College, and Lubbock was chosen as its home.
The college opened its doors in 1925, the same year this house was built. That timing is no accident. A brand-new campus brought faculty members and their families to Lubbock, and those families needed homes. Builders were busy, new neighborhoods were going up, and the town was remaking itself as a college town.
The 1920s were also a boom decade for home building across America. The Colonial Revival style was one of the era's favorites. It recalled the symmetry and classical details of early American architecture and gave a new house on the plains a sense of tradition and permanence.
People & events
Dr. Clarence S. Mast arrived in Lubbock as one of the original faculty members of Texas Tech, teaching physics. Joining a founding faculty meant building something from scratch: courses, laboratories and the habits of a new institution, in a place that had never had a college. Professors like Mast helped set the academic standard for everything that came after.
To house his family, Mast turned to A. M. Hensley, whom the marker describes as a prominent Lubbock builder. Hensley built a handsome Colonial Revival home, and its most striking feature is a porch carried on paired Doric columns. The choice of that style projected respectability and confidence, fitting for a professor's household in a growing college town.
Mast didn't get a long time to enjoy the institution he helped start. He died in 1936, a little over a decade after the college opened. His house outlasted him. In 1981 it was moved one block north of its original site, which saved it as the city around it changed. Two years later it was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Its place in the American story
The Mast House belongs to a broad American story: the spread of public higher education into regions that had never had it. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, states across the country founded colleges to serve farmers, engineers and the children of working families. Texas Tech brought that promise to the plains of West Texas.
Founding faculty members are easy to overlook, but they mattered enormously. The professors who arrived in 1925 shaped a school that grew into a major research university. It was renamed Texas Tech University in 1969 and has educated generations of West Texans. Dr. Mast's career in physics is a small part of that larger achievement.
The house also tells a preservation story. Moving a historic building is expensive and difficult. Communities across the country have done it when the alternative was losing a building entirely. The 1981 move reflects a growing national awareness in the late twentieth century that ordinary homes, not just grand public buildings, carry a community's history.
If you visit
Look for the details that make the style: the balanced, symmetrical front and, especially, the paired Doric columns on the porch. Doric columns are the simplest of the classical orders, with plain capitals and sturdy proportions. Seeing them doubled up gives the porch a solid, dignified look.
This appears to be a private residence, so enjoy it from the sidewalk and respect the privacy of anyone who lives or works there. As you look, keep in mind that the house has already moved once. It stands a block from where Dr. Mast's family first lived.
The Mast House makes a good stop on a walk or drive through historic Lubbock. It pairs naturally with a visit to the Texas Tech campus, whose early buildings echo the ambitions of the 1920s. Lubbock is also a convenient base for exploring the wider South Plains.
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
- · Dr. Clarence S. Mast
- · A. M. Hensley
Themes & tags
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