Washington County Soundwalk Experience > Independence
Independence – Antique Rose Emporium – Panel 1
Transcript of audio:
Founded in 1984, the Antique Rose Emporium is an integral part of the Independence community, drawing customers from far away. Much of the Emporium stands on the grounds of the McKnight Hairston Home, built in 1855 from the local Bay Sandstone.
Doctor John McKnight built an impressive home when he married Caroline Hairston, a widow next door. The main two-story house faced south, while another wing faced the street. Across the street was the male campus of Baylor University, built in 1845. Also, in the Classical Revival Style with local sandstone.
Long after the home was abandoned, about a hundred years, Caroline Hairston’s great grandchildren sold the property. Much of the home had fallen in places and most of the stone had been parted away and used for other building projects. What was left was much of the attached stone kitchen, which was meticulously restored for the Emporium sales and display gardens.
Beneath the kitchen was a root cellar used to store vegetables and canned goods. At one time in the history of the McKnight Hairston kitchen, a cistern was located just outside the north facing wall. A square wood pipe was placed from the cistern, through the stone wall and into the kitchen, where it was attached to a pump, providing water into the building.
Independence – Baylor on Windmill Hill – Panel 2
Transcript of audio:
In 1845 Baptist leaders chose Independence to be the location of the newly chartered Baylor University. They said, because of its centrality, accessibility, health and beautiful scenery. Initially, Baylor opened its coeducational studies in independence with 24 students at a temporary site on Academy Hill, with plans to build the University ‘s permanent home here on Windmill Hill.
Rufus Burleson altered those plans when he assumed the Baylor presidency in 1851. Separating the sexes, Burleson moved the boys to Windmill Hill to what became the male campus and primary university facility. While the girls remained at the Academy Hill location, now the site of Old Baylor Park. Over the years, Baylor built a university complex of impressive structures on Windmill Hill, including Triton Hall, Graves Hall, and Houston Hall.
Today visitors to Baylor Park on Windmill Hill can walk about the architectural excavations and other university landmarks, including the site believed to be the first burial location of Baylor’s namesake, Judge REB Baylor.
Independence – Village View – Panel 3
Transcript of audio:
In June 1880, Independence was a town of 424 people. The United States Census taker enumerating 291 White, 112 Black and 21 Mulatto residents. When Baylor classes were in session, the population would increase by at least one hundred people, maybe even double that, with the addition of out of town students, professors, and entire families who moved into the town for this scholastic year.
What stands before you is much like a ghost of what once was. Large houses are gone. Once thriving shops have left just bare land. The Cotton Gin, center of significant activity, can be imagined only by its remaining foundation and several outbuildings.
Independence – General Jerome Bonaparte Robertson House – Panel 4
Transcript of audio:
Welcome to the General Jerome Bonaparte Robertson House. Robertson was born in Kentucky in 1815. He graduated from medical school in 1835 and quickly became fascinated with the Texas Revolution. Robertson arrived in Texas in 1836. First, living in Washington-on-the-Brazos, but purchased this property in Independence in 1846 for his growing family. County Courthouse records state that Robertson was to build a double sod cedar dwelling.
Robertson took active political and military roles in Texas. He was captain of the Texas Army, served in both houses of the Texas Legislature in the late 1840s, and during the Civil War led Hoods Brigade as part of the Gettysburg Campaign. Robertson demonstrated a great concern for his men, giving rise to the unlikely name of Aunt Polly.
The House passed through a number of owners over the years and was resituated on the property several times. The well in the front yard is like the original to the Robertsons.
Independence – Toalson House – Panel 5
Transcript of audio:
The Independence Visitor Center is housed in an historic building referred to by various names. Mexican Jail, Adobe House or Toalson house. The placement of the House and its alignment with the town square suggests that it was probably built around 1835 when Independence was being established, and the town platted.
Built of sun-dried clay bricks with a stucco finish, the construction reflects pre-1836 influences, when Texas was a Mexican colony. It is not known who built the house. After Texas declared its independence in 1836, Sam Houston, president of the Republic of Texas, appointed Independence area resident John P. Coles, the first Chief Justice of Washington County.
Tradition states that this Adobe structure served as Cole’s office and the county’s courtroom and jail before the county seat was moved to Brenham in 1844. The building continued to be used as an attorney ‘s offices and later as a residence.
Independence – Edger Alley – Panel 6
Transcript of audio:
This two-story structure is built of hand-hewn cedar with wooden pegs. In a very few instances square nail heads can be seen. The building faces north. Both floors are identical. Each is centered on a wide hall, ten foot by seventeen foot with a large 17-foot by 17-foot room on either side. Originally, the kitchen and dining room were in a separate building out back, near the southwest corner. Today, the kitchen is attached. On the front, tall white columns support two verandahs above and below. There is a double stone chimney at either end of the house, each serving the fireplaces in each of the downstairs and upstairs rooms.
After Sam Houston died in July 1863 in Huntsville, his widow, Margaret Lee Houston, returned to Independence with seven of their eight children. The oldest, Sam Junior, was serving in the Confederate Army. Although Mrs. Houston still owned a property near Academy Hill, she chose to continue renting it and moved into this larger house near her mother and overlooking the town square. Margaret Houston purchased the house built in the early 1830’s, by John Bancroft Root. During the next four years, Mrs. Houston sent her oldest children to Baylor, oversaw the marriages of her two oldest daughters and persuaded Baylor President William Carey Crane to write a biography of Sam Houston.
As told by Mrs. Asa M. Williams “In the family, we’ve always been told that when the epidemic started, Mrs. Houston took her entire family away from Independence to a safer place to live until the epidemic had run its course. Later, for some reason, she came back home, bringing with her only one of the children and a maid. It was then she fell ill with the fever and died.”
Margaret died in this house at age 48 on December 3, 1867. Yellow fever victims were buried immediately for fear that contaminated bodies spread the sickness. Consequently, Mrs. Houston was buried in Independence next to her mother’s vault, across from the Historic Independence Baptist Church rather than being taken to Huntsville, where her husband was interred.
Independence – Town Square – Panel 7
Transcript of audio:
Independence was founded on December 2, 1835, by four land speculators who shared interest in a certain parcel of ground to be named Independence. The original town boundaries of Independence consisted of 78 acres laid out in a grid pattern of 60 regularly shaped blocks plus four blocks in the center of town that formed the town square. Future development of the square was determined in early 1844, when Independence lost to Brenham by one vote in the bid for the Washington County seat.
One year later, Independence, considered the wealthiest community in Texas, was chosen as the location for Baylor University. By the 1850’s, Independence was at its peak as an educational and religious center, surrounded by highly productive cotton plantations. Townspeople, Baylor students, and area planters and farmers supported local businesses, most of which overlooked the square.
The Civil War, poor roads, the lack of a railroad and other reliable transportation took their toll on the community. Even more disastrous to Independence than a fire in 1873 and a tornado in 1882 was the relocation of both Baylor campuses in 1886. The final setback came when the September 1900 hurricane swept through Southeast Texas and caused heavy damage in the area.
In the late 1880’s, an existing church north of the square was adapted for use as the public school for white children. When that building burned in 1939, the present schoolhouse was built and used until 1953. Since 1953, the building has served as both a residence and a real estate office. Today, it functions as the Community Center for Independence.
Independence – Blanton Block – Panel 8
Transcript of audio:
For centuries, Native Americans, explorers, and Texas colonists had traveled along the trail that paralleled the Ark of the Gulf Coast. By the late 1820’s and before Independence was established, travelers on the Labau Trail found lodging at this site. Portions of the original complex were built of native limestone in the late 1820’s to early 1830’s.
Ben Blanton bought and refurbished the block in 1859, providing its current name, the Blanton Block. The buildings accommodated a hotel, stagecoach and mail depot, general store, and residence. Although positioned on a major overland trail, Independence not only was bypassed by the railroad, but was also frequently inaccessible because of terrible roads. After Baylor relocated its campuses in 1836, the Blanton Complex as well as the other hotel in town gradually fell into decline.
In the 1980’s, this Wiener family constructed two stone structures that were part of the Blanton Block. Today, they serve as landmarks both to the community and to travelers on Highway 390.
Independence – General Store – Panel 9
Transcript of audio:
When Washington County native Walter C. Lueckemeyer bought this property in 1926, it already included a store building, all improvements, and the fixtures. In 1939, Lueckemeyer replaced a false front building with the present stone structure. Fashioning the facade after the most infamous architectural icon in Texas history, The Alamo.
According to Lueckemeyer’s niece, Lynn Lueckemeyer Hollaway, her uncle Walter had his own style and from the beginning made the store a social gathering place, offering slot machines and bootlegged whisky. Seats resurrected from old airplanes, were around the potbellied stove in the center. His hunting dogs wandered in and out of the store along with the customers.
The store remained a Lueckemeyer Family business until 1977, when Melvin and Christine Bentke, also natives of the area, bought the property and expanded the grocery trade. Carrying on the tradition of this family owned and operated business, Mike and Brenda Bentke Meadows acquired the property in spring 2000. The Meadows added a grill and enlarged the backroom to accommodate both local folks and visitors, everybody is welcome.
Independence – Lueckemeyer Cotton Gin – Panel 10
Transcript of audio:
Prior to the Civil War, plantation owners in the independence area were among the highest cotton producers and largest slaveholders in the state. After the war, cotton remained central to the Washington County economy well into the twentieth century, as evidenced by the number of cotton gins that dotted the county.
When Alvin Shaw’s family moved to independence in 1929, he says, “We could go from here to Brenham on each side of the road. Cotton and corn, cotton and corn, cotton and corn, all the way. Now, it’s not one patch.”
When Walter Lueckemeyer bought the store property across the street in 1926 He also bought this property where he built a cotton gin, one of three that he owned. Lueckemeyer’s Independence Gin operated until the mid 1970s and was demolished in the early 1980s. A reduction in the cotton crop and technological advances in the processing of cotton made the older gins obsolete.
Washington County Soundwalk Experience > Independence