Woodrum-Boyd House

🏛️The era

The Woodrums began building this house in 1932, at one of the lowest points of the Great Depression. Across the country, construction had slowed sharply and many families were struggling. A well-crafted new home built then was a statement of hope and confidence.

They chose the Tudor Revival style, which was very popular in American suburbs in the 1920s and 1930s. It borrows the look of old English country houses: steep cross gables, big prominent chimneys, arched doorways and leaded-glass windows. In Texas it became especially fashionable in upscale Dallas neighborhoods like Highland Park.

Denton at the time was a college town. It was home to the school that began as the College of Industrial Arts and later became Texas State College for Women and then Texas Woman's University. That school shaped the city's civic life, and it runs through this house's story from start to finish.

👥People & events

The first owners were newlyweds Elbert Norfleet "E.N." Woodrum and Comette Josephine Ramsey Woodrum. They hired contractors to build the house, but no one knows who designed it. By 1937 they wanted more room and brought in architect Clyde H. Griesenbeck, known for his Tudor Revival work in Dallas and Highland Park, to expand it. They hired him again in 1946 for a commercial building they owned in Denton. They raised three children here.

In 1949 the house passed to Ila Mae Wadley Boyd and her husband, a judge the marker identifies as Benjamin W. Boyd. They called it "Boyd's Nest" and raised two children there. Judge Boyd had served since 1925 as judge of the 19th District Court for Denton and Cooke counties. In 1952 he was appointed an associate justice on the Court of Civil Appeals in Fort Worth.

Mae Wadley Boyd became the house's most prominent resident. She was a leader in women's clubs and a steady supporter of the college that became Texas Woman's University. She was elected president of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs and of the Texas State College for Women Alumni Association. In 1960 Governor Price Daniel named her a delegate to a White House conference on children and youth.

The Boyds moved out in 1963, and later owners also had ties to Texas Woman's University. The house was eventually restored to its original look and named a City of Denton Historic Landmark in 2017.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

The house tells two national stories at once. One is architectural. Tudor Revival was one of the defining home styles of interwar America, and this house, with its asymmetrical gables, towering chimney and arched oak door, is a fine example of how Americans of that era pictured a comfortable, dignified home.

The other is about women's civic power. For generations, women's clubs were among the most effective civic organizations in America. Clubwomen raised money for libraries, pushed for better schools and public health, and backed women's education, often before women held elected office in any numbers. Mae Wadley Boyd's leadership at the state level and her invitation to a White House conference show how far that kind of organizing could reach.

It's also a reminder that women's colleges shaped their communities. The college in Denton that became Texas Woman's University trained generations of Texas women, and its alumnae and supporters, Boyd among them, helped build the civic life of the state.

🧭If you visit

Start at the front door. Look for the wide plank oak door under its Tudor arch and the leaded-glass window with its diagonal panes. Then step back to take in the big three-story chimney on the south side and the uneven cross gables that give the house its storybook look.

This is a private home, so admire it from the sidewalk and respect the owners' privacy.

The house fits well into a walk or drive around Denton's older neighborhoods and the nearby Texas Woman's University campus, the institution Mae Wadley Boyd worked so hard for. It's a good stop for anyone interested in historic architecture, women's history, or the college-town character of North Texas.