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. Woodland is the dogtrot he and Margaret finished in 1848, log built with a breezeway down the middle, and it stands where it was, as does the one room cabin he practised law from. The Steamboat House, where he died, was moved here in 1936 from its original site near the cemetery. Not every building on the grounds is his. The period the site is best on is his last, and it is the least comfortable part of the story. Houston opposed secession, refused the Confederate loyalty oath, and was removed as governor in March 1861. He did not come straight here, reaching Huntsville only in 1862, where he rented the Steamboat House from Rufus Bailey, who had built it in 1858 as a wedding present for a son who took one look at it and declined to live there. He died of pneumonia on 26 July 1863. The collection runs to thousands of objects, and the ones people remember are not the solemn ones: a green velvet hat he bought in the 1830s, a vest made of jaguar skin, and the saddle taken from Santa Anna at San Jacinto. Admission is modest and the grounds are free to walk. It is about a mile east of Interstate 45.
Getting there
30.7156, -95.5521
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
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