The Montgomery House

🏛️The era

Columbus sits on the Colorado River in Colorado County. It is one of the oldest Anglo-American settlements in Texas, with roots reaching back to the early colonial era under Mexican rule. By the time of the Civil War it was an established river town surrounded by farms and plantations.

The years right after the war were a time of rebuilding across Texas. The Confederacy's defeat, the end of slavery, and the arrival of Reconstruction remade the social and economic order. At the same time, new settlers kept arriving and land kept changing hands. Land agents, the people who bought, sold, surveyed, and brokered property, were busy figures in towns like Columbus.

The Montgomery House was built about 1867, in the middle of that unsettled, energetic time. Its materials tell a story of their own. The brick foundation was made by hand, and the sills are native oak. The floors are pine, while the siding, doors, and shutters are cypress, a wood prized in the South because it resists rot and insects.

Its L-shaped plan and modest scale make it what the marker calls a typical post-Civil War Empire cottage. It is the kind of comfortable, practical family home that went up in Texas towns as communities settled back into everyday life after the war.

👥People & events

The house was built about 1867 by A. J. Gallilee, a land agent. In postwar Texas, land agents were at the center of the action, helping newcomers find property and helping old landholders sell it. Building a solid home of good local materials suggests Gallilee expected to stay and prosper.

In 1876 the house passed to Fannie (Obenchain) Montgomery and J. T. Montgomery. They raised five children here, and those years of family life gave the house the name it still carries. It's a nice reminder that a house's identity often comes not from the builder but from the family whose daily lives filled its rooms.

In 1919 the Montgomerys' era ended when the house was sold to Walter and Ethel Glithero. It carried on as a home into the twentieth century, through decades when many older houses were torn down or altered past recognition.

In 1967 Arthur J. Willrodt bought the house and restored it. His work helped preserve its original character, and in 1973 it was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark. Four sets of owners over a century, each in their own way, carried the house forward.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

Grand mansions get much of the attention in historic preservation. Yet most Americans lived in houses like this one: modest, well-built, and made from whatever good materials were close at hand. The Montgomery House preserves that more ordinary and more representative side of nineteenth-century life.

The house also reflects the broader postwar story of the South. As communities rebuilt after the Civil War, people bought land, built homes, and raised families in towns that were finding their footing again. A land agent's cottage that became a family's long-term home captures that process of settling in.

Its materials say something about American building traditions too. Cypress, oak, pine, and handmade brick are the vocabulary of Southern vernacular architecture, chosen for durability in a hot, humid climate. That this house still stands after more than a century and a half is proof that those builders knew what they were doing.

Finally, the restoration in 1967 belongs to a national story of its own. The 1960s and 1970s brought a growing preservation movement, as Americans began to value the older buildings that had been disappearing from their towns.

🧭If you visit

Columbus is known for its historic homes and tree-shaded streets, and the Montgomery House fits right into that setting. Look for the L-shaped form and the cypress siding and shutters. Notice how the house sits on its foundation, with the handmade brick that has carried it since the 1860s.

Remember that this is a historic home, so enjoy it respectfully from the street unless it is clearly open to visitors. Even from the sidewalk, you can picture five Montgomery children growing up here: the porch, the yard, and the comings and goings of a busy household in a nineteenth-century river town.

Columbus is an easy stop on a drive between Houston and San Antonio. Its historic downtown and many marked homes make it a fine place to walk. Give yourself time to wander the neighborhood streets and read the markers. Each house adds another chapter to the town's long story.