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Published: February 17th 2020
The Howard-Dickinson House was built by two Howard brothers in 1855 at 501 South Main Street in Henderson, Texas. They used the clay on site and used their brick kiln on site to make bricks to build their house; the first brick house in Henderson. Then they sold their bricks to many other locals for their buildings. (Note: Their homestead was acres larger then it is now. I am uncertain where they got the charcoal fuel for the brick kiln; but there was plenty of wood and charcoal available locally.)
Sam Houston was related to the Howard family, and while in Henderson he stayed with the Howards.
Mrs. Dickinson purchased the Howard House in 1905; and added a two story wing at the rear of the house. In the 1930s she rented out that added wing as a boarding house for oil field workers during the East Texas Oil Boom.
The pics shot from Howard Street shows the original Howard House in front; and the section added by Mrs. Dickinson in back that was used as a boarding house fifty years later.
In 1967 this House was run down and needed repairs. The Rusk County Heritage Association
was given this house and did a very good restoration and it remains a museum today.
This visit is from the Henderson Syrup Festival in 2016 when there was free admission to the Howard-Dickinson House. (After that there was a reasonable $5 USD admission fee.) The Howard House is just outside of the secured area for the Syrup Festival. Performing security there near the Howard House was a very nice City of Henderson policeman, and we had a very nice chat there at his location.
There is little information that I can find on line on the Howard House. Wikipedia tells me that this house is haunted. They have ghost tours there in some evenings.
Note: I shot the morning pics looking into the sun. At the end of my afternoon day, I returned to the Howard-Dickinson House to shoot with the sun at my back.
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Howard-Dickinson House
