William Terry Allen Log Cabin
White Settlement, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1854 young William Allen (1842-1893) came with his family to Tarrant County from Todd County, Kentucky. By 1857 they had settled at this location on 360 acres. After serving in the Confederate army, Allen married Sarah Fannie Grant (1849-1870). They bought 160 acres about 1864 and built this 13' x18' cabin on White Settlement Road six miles west of Tarrant County Courthouse. After his first wife died, Allen married her sister Theodocia E. Grant (1854-1931). They added to the cabin several times, including a bedroom, "The Professor's Room". It was reserved during school months for the local teacher. The cabin was the family home until 1908, when a frame cottage was built nearby. In 1933 Allen's heirs sold 22 acres which included the cabin. The new owner moved the cabin north of the original site and enlarged it. In 1953 the land was sold to the United States government for runway additions to Carswell Air Force Base. The cabin was moved to Fort Worth. The White Settlement Historical Society, organized in 1976, raised funds to number the logs and move the dismantled cabin to the present site. It was restored to its original size and opened to groups interested in local history. (1978)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
William Terry Allen came to Tarrant County from Kentucky as a boy in 1854, and by 1864 — after serving in the Confederate army — he and his wife had built this small 13-by-18-foot log cabin west of the courthouse. The family enlarged it over the years, even setting aside a "Professor's Room" for the local schoolteacher during the school term. After decades of use, sale, and relocation, the cabin was finally moved to make way for Carswell Air Force Base runways, then numbered log by log and restored to its original size by the White Settlement Historical Society.
Why it matters
The cabin preserves the texture of frontier homesteading in North Texas — and its long odyssey of moves reflects how communities fight to keep their pioneer past even as modern development overruns it.
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Related people
- · William Terry Allen
Themes & tags
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