The Woodhouse Home
Victoria, Victoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Harry G. Woodhouse (1865-1918), a former conductor with Southern Pacific Railway, completed this house for his family in 1910. While living in Victoria, he became a successful farmer and served several terms on the city council. Interesting features of the home, which remained in the Woodhouse family for seventy years, include the Classical pediment and the Queen Anne porch with Doric piers on the first floor and Ionic columns above. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1983
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Harry G. Woodhouse traded a career as a Southern Pacific Railway conductor for farming and public life in Victoria, serving several terms on the city council. In 1910 he completed this handsome family home, blending a Classical pediment with a Queen Anne porch carrying Doric piers below and Ionic columns above. It stayed in the Woodhouse family for seventy years.
Why it matters
The house reflects the prosperous small-city civic life that railroads and agriculture built across turn-of-the-century Texas.
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Related people
- · Harry G. Woodhouse
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Home County of William Pinckney McLean
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Victoria County, C.S.A.
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Site of Southern Pacific Railroad Depot
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The railroad remade Victoria's fortunes, and this was the site of its grand two-story Southern Pacific depot, built in 1888–89 after the New York, Texas & Mexican line pushed track into town and made it a headquarters. With waiting rooms and ticket offices below and division offices above, the depot handled passengers and freight and doubled as a place for the community to gather. Passenger service ended in 1953 and the building, though used into 1979, burned in 1984—leaving only its memory as an engine of the town's growth.
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