W. W. Townsend Home
Alpine, Brewster County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1908 by local architect and building contractor William Daugherty for William Wallace Townsend (1833-1915), this house is a good example of a turn-of-the-century residence. Allen H. Palmer purchased the home in 1920 and lived here until his death in 1927. The cast stone structure features paired front doors, shingled dormers, and a front porch with Eastlake influences. An outside staircase, added before 1913, was removed in the 1940s. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1908 by local contractor William Daugherty for pioneer settler William Wallace Townsend, this cast-stone house is a fine turn-of-the-century residence in the far West Texas town of Alpine. Its paired front doors, shingled dormers, and Eastlake-influenced porch reflect the tastes of a settling frontier community, and later owner Allen H. Palmer lived here into the 1920s. An outside stair added before 1913 was later removed.
Why it matters
Substantial homes in remote West Texas towns mark the moment when a raw ranching frontier settled into permanent, prosperous community life.
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Related people
- ¡ William Wallace Townsend
- ¡ William Daugherty
- ¡ Allen H. Palmer
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Brewster County Courthouse
Alpine, TX
Erected in 1887 as vast Brewster County was carved out of the Big Bend country of far West Texas, this courthouse anchored civic life in the frontier town of Alpine. It served the neighboring Buchel and Foley counties too, until those areas were folded into Brewster. Generations later, the courthouse square remains the gathering place for community events.
J.C. Carr-Bob Slight House
Alpine, TX
Early settler J.C. Carr built this house in 1884 using the time-honored Southwestern method of laying double adobe-brick walls at night so they dried slowly to great strength. In 1903 it passed to Judge R.B. Slight, an English law clerk who had come west to be a cowboy after watching Wild West shows, and who added five adobe rooms and lived here for half a century. A rancher, merchant, and civic leader, Slight helped found what became Sul Ross College.
Garcia-Valadez House
Alpine, TX
Ranch hand Trinidad Garcia built this Alpine house in 1890, its original four rooms walled in adobe up to 33 inches thick, and for years it served as a neighborhood social center. Since 1926 it has been the home of merchant Thomas Valadez and his family, who expanded it to eight rooms. It was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1968.
Ritchey Hotel, 1886
Alpine, TX
Built in 1886 of frame and adobe, the Ritchey Hotel rose beside the cattle-loading pens of the Southern Pacific Railway in the vast, remote Big Bend country. Here cowhands and ranchers who had driven stock in from scattered ranches could find a bed, a drink, and company while waiting to ship their cattle east by rail. It captures the moment when the railroad transformed West Texas ranching from an isolated frontier trade into part of a national market.