History
Gibbs-Powell House
Thomas Gibbs commissioned this house in 1862 and a builder named W. M. Barrett put it up, in Greek Revival because that is what a prosperous Southern merchant built in Texas at the time. Gibbs was a storekeeper and a landowner, and he was close enough to Sam Houston, who lived about six blocks away, that Houston named him first executor of his will.
History
Old Sparky
The oak chair in the replica execution chamber here killed 361 people between 1924 and 1964. Texas had centralised executions the year before it was built, taking them away from the counties and moving them to the Huntsville Unit about two and a half miles from this spot; the last public county hanging had already happened, in Brazoria County in August 1923.
Museums & Art
Sam Houston Memorial Museum
Fifteen acres in the middle of Huntsville hold the two houses Sam Houston lived and died in, which is a different proposition from the concrete giant five miles down the interstate. The land was part of Houston's own farm and the museum is run by Sam Houston State University.
History
Sam Houston Statue
Sixty seven feet of Sam Houston stands in the pines beside Interstate 45, on a granite pedestal ten feet high, and northbound drivers see him a long way off. The sculptor was David Adickes, born in Huntsville in 1927, who later became known for the row of oversized presidential heads off the same highway in Houston.
Elsewhere in Texas
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
