This past Saturday, I went to a presentation by the Bridge Street History Center about Alonzo Peyton (A. P.) Gordon (1847-1921), an early settler here in Granbury, and his 1882 house, which is one block south of the History Center (itself in the 1879 D. L. Nutt - Watkins House).
Both of these places are just a couple blocks from my home. The Gordon House is now part of the Dora Lee Langdon Cultural Center, which includes all the buildings and grounds on the entire block, and is owned and operated by the City of Granbury.
Here's how the Gordon House looked in December 2021:
Above: A. P. Gordon House, Granbury, Texas, 22 December 2021 / Amanda Pape
The presentation included a handout with an old photograph of the house dated 1924. I don't have access to a good copy of that image, but the one above is similar. The presenter remarked that "some of our preserved houses sure don't look like they used to!"
That got me wondering what Sanborn fire insurance maps might tell us about the changing footprint of the house. Here's the house on the March 1893 Sanborn map, on the corner of Brazos and Pearl streets:
Above: Granbury 1893 Sheet 2 (cropped). Below: Granbury 1898 Sheet 1 (cropped). Both from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection,
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps - Texas (1877-1922), University of Texas at Austin.
The March 1893 Sanborn map doesn't make it very clear if the front porch (on the Pearl street side) is one story or two, but the July 1898 map (just above) does - it's two stories.
By the time the January 1905 Sanborn map was made, the front porch had been extended to wrap around the front and sides of the house, as shown below:
Above: Granbury 1905 Sheet 4 (cropped). Below: Granbury 1910 Sheet 5 (cropped).
Both from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection,
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps - Texas (1877-1922), University of Texas at Austin.
By the time of the July 1910 Sanborn map (above), the two-story porch had been extended around almost the entire house. The back wing that had the water tank had been removed, but the rest of that back wing had been extended to two stories.
The March 1945 Sanborn map (from the TexShare Proquest Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867–1970 database) shows the same configuration for the house. In the article "Chrysalis Rings New Theme in Old House" by Ardyce Pfanstiel in the March/April 1984 issue of granbury! The Journal of the Historic Brazos River Valley (volume 1, number 2, pages 26-28), I learned that the two-story porch was removed in 1956, as was the rear two-story wing, and the existing one-story kitchen addition was constructed.
So based on all this information, the old photograph near the beginning of this post would have been dated after July 1898 (the last Sanborn map that shows only a smaller two-story front porch).
However, I would date the photograph below (also undated) as falling sometime between July 1898 and January 1905 (the first Sanborn to show a two-story front porch wrapping around the front and sides of the building.
Why? Notice in the photograph below, you can see the projecting bay windows on the lower floor (as in the December 2021 picture at the beginning of this post). Those bay windows do not appear on the July 1898 Sanborn.
Above: A. P. Gordon House, Granbury, Texas, undated, between July 1898 and January 1905 / Dora Lee Langdon Cultural and Educational Center
Below: Combination of Granbury 1905 Sheet 3 (cropped) and Granbury 1905 Sheet 4 (cropped). Both from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection,
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps - Texas (1877-1922), University of Texas at Austin.
Click on the image to make it larger.
The 1905 Sanborn map above shows the sight line from the westernmost bay window (hidden under the two-story porch) to Gordon's store on the corner. I stepped into that window area while at the house, and sure enough, I could still see the building (formerly the Nutshell Bakery, now the Square Cafe, and St. Helens).
© Amanda Pape - 2022 - e-mail me!
