CHARLES ROE HOUSE, Coke County, TX

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Submitted by Jo Collier - jomar@wcc.net
15 Oct 2000
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HISTORIC HOUSE HAS TRAVELED A LOT

By Sherri Deatherage, Staff Writer
San Angelo Stadard-Times, 12 Feb 1990

Robert Lee - Charles Roe set a trend in 1886 when he loaded up his 
house and moved it to Robert Lee from Hayrick.

Five years later, many others followed his lead when Coke County 
residents voted to move the county seat from Hayrick to Robert 
Lee.

"I can't understand how in the world they did it," Polly Holland 
said, imagining her grandfather's feat of moving the house by 
horse and mule over rough, roadless terrain.

Now, the neat, five-room house still stands by a water well where 
Roe relocated it, behind Holland's home on the outskirts of Robert 
Lee. Holland hopes to donate the building to the Coke County 
Historical Commission.

"They had 10 children and they were all born in that house." 
Holland said, referring to her grandparents, Charles and Georgia 
Roe.

Originally a wooden structure, Roe coated the outside with stucco 
and his wife later had indoor plumbing installed in what was once 
a dining room.

In the days before gas lawnmowers and carefully sculptured lawns, 
Mr. Roe planted the yard in flowers that travelers could smell 
hundreds of yards down the road.

"This place was solid petunias,"  Holland said.

After Roe died in 1932, Mrs. Roe moved to San Angelo at the urging 
of her children, where she lived until her death in 1944.

"She didn't want to stay in town,"  Holland siad.  "They didn't 
want her to live here because ther wasn't anything out here then 
. . . this was way out in the country."

Mrs. Holland and her husband built a new house nearby when Lake
Spence flooded a ranch her family had owned for decades, she said.

She later bought the little old house out back from her sister in 
hopes of donating it to the historical commission and preserving 
it.

"It would give us a good opportunity to show the pioneer at the 
turn of the century type home," said Fran Lomas, commission 
chairwoman.

Lomas said she is "definitely interest" in the commission 
acquiring the house, but said the commission hasn't officially
discussed the possibility.

The Coke County Museum, located in the old jail at Robert Lee, is
crowded with artifacts.

"We are kind of bursting at our seams," Lomas said.

Hollard said she hopes to retrieve some of the old home's original
furnishing from family members so visitors can step back a century
in time.

Permission granted by San Angelo Standard-Times for publication in 
the Coke County TXGenWeb Archives