If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 553

 

 

 

 

 

 Sam Houston Home, "Woodland," Huntsville, Texas

 

Two unused postcards, shared by friends, J & K, are featured this week.  Above is an exterior view of the Sam Houston Home in Huntsville, Texas.  On the reverse of the card at the lower left is:  98856-D.  At the upper left is a short information blurb:  “Sam Houston Home at Sam Houston Memorial Museum, Huntsville, Texas.  Houston built this house in 1847.  Still in its original location the home has a “dog run” or center breezeway, to capture the prevailing wind.”  The photograph is attributed to Gough Photo Service of Houston, Texas. 

 

Called Woodland, this home was built in stages beginning about 1847 and was the residence of Sam Houston from 1847 to 1859.  In the beginning it was a single-room log cabin to which was added a breezeway and a second log structure.  The house is finished in wooden clapboards and has a shed-roofed porch, and a gabled roof.  Late additions and alterations included an upper level.  There is a winding staircase that provides access to the loft bedrooms.  The second card, seen below, has a photograph attributed to Gough Photo Service, of Houston, Texas, and shows the upstairs boys’ room. 

 

 

 

 

 

Boys’ Room, Sam Houston Home

 

A reconstructed outbuilding with the kitchen as well as a restored cabin that Houston used as his law office were added and altogether they now form the centerpiece grouping of the Sam Houston Museum located on the southeast corner of the Sam Houston State University Campus in Huntsville, Texas.  The museum property is a total of 15 acres. 

 

The style of the house is called “dog run” on the card’s blurb but is also known as a dogtrot, breezeway, or possum-trot house.  This type of house was common throughout the Southeastern United States during the 1800s and 1900s.  Essentially two cabins with large 18 to 20 feet (5.5 and 6.1 m) rooms are joined by an open-ended breezeway.  Normally one large room was used as a kitchen and the other for private living space.  Additional rooms, usually semidetached, forming an “L” or shed for sleeping, were most commonly added at the rear.  The breezeway through the center of the house was designed to allow airflow that would cool the house during the hot humid summer days.  Although Sam Houston added a partial upper story to Woodland, most dog run houses were single storied.  Some dog run houses had a larger porch than Woodland and/or enclosed shed roofed rooms at the front or rear of the house. 

 

Woodland was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. 

 

As always, thank to J & K for sharing the cards.

 

For additional information, see:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodland_(Huntsville,_Texas)

https://enwikipedia.org/wiki/Dogtrot_house