Wimberley-Hughes House
Wimberley, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Zachary Taylor “Zach” Wimberley began construction on this house around 1877 for his first wife, Mary Elizabeth Franklin. Built of board and batten on a stone foundation, the end-gabled structure was painted pink with red trim, considered unique for late-19th century architecture. Traces of red trim paint are still visible on the exterior window moldings. Flanking the central hallway, two main rooms, each with a chimney, feature windows with elegant triangular pediment moldings. Mary Elizabeth had 11 children here before she died in 1901. Zach and second wife, Rachael Taylor, added three more children. The mill on Cypress Creek, owned and operated from 1874 by Zach and his father, Pleasant Wimberley, provided lumber for the house. It expanded into the production of flour, cornmeal and sorghum molasses. By 1898, competition with New Braunfels’ Landa Mill (Comal County) encouraged Zach Wimberley and partner, son-in-law Sidney Pyland, to replace the mill with steam-driven facilities to adapt to the upsurge in cotton farming. The mill remained the focal point of the village until it closed in 1925. When Zach died in 1913, his sister, Eliza Mary “Lidie,” moved into the house. Her husband, Nathan Emery Hughes, also a partner in the mill and noted stonemason, added the petrified-wood terracing, patio and steps leading to the gabled front porch. With Lidie’s death in 1954, her granddaughter, Velma Rose (Hughes) Lawhorn, was the last of the family to own the house. Now the property of the Wimberley Institute of Cultures, this house bears witness to the founders of the village of Wimberley and exemplifies extensive preservation efforts of local residential architecture. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK – 2016
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Around 1877, Zach Wimberley began building this board-and-batten house—painted a striking pink with red trim—for his wife Mary Elizabeth, using lumber from the family mill on Cypress Creek. That mill, run by Zach and his father Pleasant, ground flour, cornmeal, and sorghum molasses and was the beating heart of the village that still bears the family name. Stonemason Nathan Hughes, who married into the family, later added the distinctive petrified-wood terracing that ornaments the home.
Why it matters
House and mill together mark the founding of Wimberley, showing how a single family's enterprise could seed a Hill Country town and give it its name.
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Related people
- · Zachary Taylor Wimberley
- · Pleasant Wimberley
- · Nathan Emery Hughes
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Winters-Wimberley House
Wimberley, TX
William Carvin Winters came to Texas from Tennessee in 1834 and fought — and was badly wounded — at the Battle of San Jacinto. Settling on Cypress Creek in the 1850s, he built a mill in 1856 and this thick-walled limestone homestead soon after, from which he could watch his saw- and gristmill turn. As the mill passed to the Cude and then the Wimberley families, the village around it was renamed with each owner, until 'Wimberley' finally stuck.
Wimberley Mills
Wimberley, TX
In 1848 San Jacinto veteran William C. Winters settled this Hill Country valley and raised grist and saw mills on Cypress Creek, drawing a settlement out of the wilderness. Passing through the hands of his son-in-law and then Pleasant Wimberley, who bought the complex in 1874, the mills ground flour, sawed lumber, cut shingles, and ginned cotton—renaming the growing village when the post office opened in 1880. After converting to steam power as the creek weakened, the enterprise finally closed in 1934, ending more than 85 years of work on the water.
Site of Sidney J. Pyland Blacksmith Shop
Wimberley, TX
Sidney J. Pyland came to Wimberley from Tennessee as a boy around 1880 and, at age twenty in 1895, opened a blacksmith shop just above Cypress Creek on the village square. For fifteen years he shod horses, built and mended wagons, and forged implements for the ranchers and farmers of the Hill Country, before moving his whole operation to San Marcos in 1910. The square where he worked has stayed a hub of business ever since.
James C. Lane House
Wimberley, TX
Wimberley builder James Calvin Lane raised this modest craftsman home in 1935, next door to the café his wife Rebecca ran in the Texas Hill Country. From its living room, Rebecca operated Wimberley's first telephone switchboard, tying a small community together in the early days of rural phone service. The house is prized locally for its rare "giraffe rock" exterior, native stone studded with petrified wood and fossils.