Built when fewer than seven hundred citizens lived in Waco Village proper, the Earle-Napier-Kinnard House has truly been a witness to history. In 1856, Thomas Harrison and John Baylis Earle purchased a double log cabin on five acres for $1,000. Two years later, Earle built a two-room brick home on three of the acres and moved into the residence with his wife Emma. The couple had their first three children in the home but eventually relocated to East Waco in order to be closer to the facto...| Waco History
On the east bank of the Brazos River stands East Terrace House, a residence with a past that is as remarkable as its Italianate style of architecture. Future industrialist John Wesley Mann moved to Waco in 1858 from Lebanon, Tennessee. He raised horses until he enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861 as a private in Company G, Sixth Regiment, Texas Cavalry. Mann served as a blacksmith and as a member of a scout company throughout the duration of the war. Having survived the war, Mann looke...| Waco History
The history of Fort House is as much a narrative about a nineteenth-century family home as it is local twentieth century efforts to preserve the landmarks of Waco’s prosperous past. The man behind one of Waco’s more distinctive homes was not a Texas native. Originally from La Grange, Alabama, William A. Fort came to Waco in 1854 with a caravan of five hundred people. He and his father established a plantation four miles south of Waco in the Downsville area. On May 7, 1856, he married Dion...| Waco History
