Townsend-West House
Columbus, Colorado County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Eastlake style embellishments make this a Victorian jewel. It was built in 1890 by contractor Jacob Wirtz for Marcus H. and Annie (Burford) Townsend. A State Representative (1883-85) and Senator (1889-93), Townsend sponsored bill for state purchase of the Alamo; he also named a county for his law partner, Major Robert Foard.Bought 1906 by Thurmond Bowers and Erma (Zumwalt) West, house is occupied and preserved by their son, Thurmond Baltzar West.Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1973
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1890, this Eastlake-trimmed Victorian was the home of Marcus H. Townsend, a Texas state representative and senator. Among his legislative acts, Townsend sponsored the bill by which the state purchased the Alamo, and he named a county for his law partner. The house has remained a cherished family home across generations.
Why it matters
It links an ordinary Columbus street to one of Texas's defining acts of historical preservation—the rescue of the Alamo as a public shrine.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When this house went up in 1890, Columbus was already an old town by Texas standards. It sits on the Colorado River in country that Anglo-American settlers had been farming since the days of Stephen F. Austin's colony. By the end of the 1800s the frontier had moved far to the west, and towns like Columbus were settling into prosperity built on cotton, cattle and the railroad.
Across the country, the 1880s and 1890s were the Gilded Age: fast-growing towns, new fortunes, and a taste for showy domestic architecture. Factory-made millwork and pattern books put elaborate trim within reach of a successful lawyer or merchant. That is how a house in a county seat on the Texas coastal plain could come to look like it was cut from a Victorian catalog.
It was also a time when Texans began to look back. A generation after independence and statehood, many of the people who remembered the Revolution were dying. Texans started asking who would protect the places where their story had happened. Some of those debates took place in the state legislature, where this house's first owner served.
People & events
Marcus H. Townsend and his wife, Annie Burford Townsend, hired a local contractor, Jacob Wirtz, to build this home in 1890. Townsend was a lawyer and a politician. He served in the Texas House in the mid-1880s and then in the Texas Senate into the early 1890s, and he left a lasting mark on the state's memory and map.
The marker credits him with sponsoring the bill under which the state of Texas bought the Alamo. In those years the old mission church in San Antonio was not yet a protected shrine. By the 1880s the state had acquired the Alamo church, and Townsend's legislation helped do it. It was one of the first times Texas spent public money to keep a historic site, and later preservationists would build on that step to save more of the old mission grounds.
Townsend also put a friend's name on the map. He named a Texas county for his law partner, Major Robert Foard, and Foard County still carries that name today. In 1906 the house passed to Thurmond Bowers West and Erma Zumwalt West. Their son, Thurmond Baltzar West, went on living in it and caring for it. When the house became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1973, it was still a family home rather than a museum, and it had been kept that way for decades.
Its place in the American story
Today the Alamo is one of the best-known historic sites in America, a symbol people recognize far beyond Texas. It is easy to forget that someone had to decide it was worth buying. The bill Townsend sponsored was part of a national change in the late 1800s, when Americans began to treat battlefields, old buildings and birthplaces as shared heritage to protect, not just property to sell or tear down.
The house also tells a quieter national story. Eastlake-style ornament takes its name from the English designer Charles Eastlake. American builders reworked his ideas into the turned spindles, brackets and carved trim that spread from coast to coast in the late Victorian era. Seeing that style in a Texas county seat shows how railroads and mass-produced millwork carried one look across the whole country.
Finally, it is a lesson in how preservation actually happens. Before any state program existed, one family kept this house standing for most of the 20th century. Across America, much of what survives from the Victorian era is still here because ordinary owners chose to look after it.
If you visit
Look at the trim first. Eastlake detailing usually means lathe-turned posts, rows of spindles, decorative brackets and carved panels, all added for delight rather than structure. Take your time on the porch and gable ornament, where a builder of that era could show off most.
Please remember that this has long been a private family home. Enjoy it from the street and respect the residents' privacy. Columbus is an easy town to walk, and its older streets and courthouse square have other historic buildings and markers worth a slow loop.
On a road trip, Columbus sits between Houston and San Antonio, which makes it a natural stop on a drive that ends at the Alamo itself. Stopping here first lets you see the beginning of the story: the Texas lawmaker who helped get the old mission into public hands, and the home he came back to.
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
- · Marcus H. Townsend
- · Thurmond Baltzar West
Themes & tags
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