The McClure-McReynolds-Fowler House

    Built in 1849 by Alexander Ewing McClure, a prominent East Texas lawyer who came to Fort Houston in 1840. The house and five acres was purchased by Judge Zachariah Aycock McReynolds from the McClure family in 1884.  Ella Sue McReynolds Fowler became the owner of the property in 1928 after the death of her father, and she and her husband Colonel Godfrey Rees Fowler made it their home from 1934 to 1973. 

     The architectural design is of early Texas style and originally had a "dog trot hallway" through the center.  The house has been modified several times but the hand hewn oak sills, clapboard siding, and major features still remain.  The outside architectural features of interest are the five gables with their unique shingle design and the front and back porches with balustrades of lathe turned spindles. 

    A. E. McClure purchased from Fulton and Biglow, September 13, 1848 five acres of land which lay just northeast of and bordered on the city limits of Palestine, the newly created county seat of Anderson County. Anderson County was created from the northern portion of Houston County on March 24, 1846 and received its name from Kenneth L. Anderson the last Vice-President of the Republic of Texas.

    Judge McClure located his home about a hundred feet back from the street in the northeast corner of his five acre tract.  The house was designed to have dormer windows in the roof of its story and a half structure and was built with native pine lumber.  There was a large front porch across the front of the house and a hallway through the center.  The dimensions of the original house were about sixty feet  across the front and fifty feet deep.  Located under a cedar tree about halfway from the street to the house was Judge McClure's one room law office.  Judge McClure died in 1870 and his family sold the property to Z. A. McReynolds in 1884.  In 1890 the house was remodeled and made into a one story structure with three bedrooms, a large hall, parlor, dining room and kitchen with large porches in the front and back of the house.  In 1935 Colonel G. R. Fowler and his wife remodeled the home by removing the ginger-bread trim and replacing it with brick and mortar.  Again, the house was restored and remodeled extensively in 1979 and 1980 by Oliver B. McReynolds, Jr. and his brother-in-law William H. Matthews.  The house was returned to some to some of the grandeur of the Victorian era by replacing the "bricks and mortar" with decorative ginger-bread trim.  Some of the structure was modernized in order to make the living area more compatible with the contemporary way of living. 

In 1970 the Texas Historical Commission placed a marker a with a historical description of the property.

921 N Perry St. Palestine, Texas 75801

903-729-2059

innkeeper@dogwoodinnbedandbreakfast.com