National Register Listing

Nolte-Rooney House

307 E. Sul Ross Ave., Alpine, TX

The Nolte-Rooney House (1890) is representative of the earliest residential development in Alpine (originally Murphysville), Brewster County, following the arrival of the railroad in 1883. The house is a marriage of traditional Hispanic building techniques and Anglo-influenced domestic architecture. Its adobe block construction is typical of the Southwest while its original L-plan form and Queen Anne details are largely derivative of common and popular domestic architecture of the South and East. The property is eligible under Criterion C in the area of Architecture at the local level of significance.

Alpine, Texas, is in the northeastern part of Brewster County, the largest county in Texas, equivalent to the combined size of Rhode Island and Connecticut. With an elevation of 4,484 feet, Alpine is nestled in the Alpine Valley and surrounded by high peaks of the Davis Mountains. Fort Davis, the town and the restored Fort Davis National Historic Site, lie 26 miles to the north of Alpine while Big Bend National Park spreads some 110 miles south of the city. The county seat is home to Sul Ross State University, which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary.

Long before the first English settlers landed on the East Coast of North America Spanish soldiers and priests had entered the Big Bend region and crossed the Alpine Valley. In 1535 Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and three of his fellow Spaniards crossed the Big Bend and, according to many historians, camped at what is today known as Kokernot Springs in Alpine, thus becoming the first Europeans in the area.

Inspired by Cabeza de Vaca's reports of gold and silver in the Big Bend, the Spanish Governor of New Spain (Mexico) financed exploring expeditions into the region. In 1582 Antonio de Espejo crisscrossed the area, following ancient Amerindian trails and including the encampment at Kokernot Springs. In 1682 Juan Domingues de Mendoza camped at the water hole and named it San Lorenzo. Dr. H. Connelly and a group of wealthy Mexican merchants attempted in 1839 to establish a direct trade route between Chihuahua City, Mexico, and St. Louis, Missouri. While camped at the Alpine water hole, the group was attacked by an Indian war party led by Mescalero Apache Chief Alsate. For a time the water hole became known as Charco de Alsate.

In 1846-48 a group of discharged U.S. Army men in Chihuahua City including John Burgess decided to establish their own trade route between Chihuahua and San Antonio. The Chihuahua Trail, as it became known, followed the Indian Salt Trail near Fort Stockton, through Fort Davis and Alpine, southwest to Presidio, and into Chihuahua City. Burgess was one of the most active freighters who contracted with the U.S. government in 1850 to sell supplies to Fort Stockton and Fort Davis. He frequented Charco de Alsate and the water hole soon became known as Burgess Springs.

After the annexation of Texas to the Union in 1845 and the end of the Mexican War in 1849, the federal government began the construction of forts for protection along the trade routes, and wide-scale immigration into Texas. The threat of Indians and Mexican renegades still posed a threat, however, to the Big Bend. The Texas Rangers were dispersed to assist the forts and frontier lawmen. By the 1870s, cattlemen began settling the area, and after 1880 when the last of the Indians were forced on reservations, many retired rangers arrived in Alpine and southern Presidio County to build ranches, among them Joe D. Jackson and John W. Kokernot.

The coming railroad finally developed Alpine, with the first train coming through on January 12, 1883, from New Orleans to California. On November 10, 1883, Thomas O. Murphy, a surveyor with the Southern Pacific Railroad, registered a plat out of Section 42 for the town of Murphysville. Murphy and his father had lived in Fort Davis for several years and had acquired Sections 42 and 98 in exchange for the right to erect and maintain a pump station at the Burgess Water Hole which they owned. At that time, Murphysville (or Osborne) was in Presidio County with Fort Davis as the seat.

Almost immediately following the dedication of the town plat, Murphy held a special sale of lots. Louisa DuBois, a member of one of the town's early families from Elgin, Illinois, bought Block 22 for $250. Seven years later DuBois sold Lots 1 and 2 to F.H. and Sara Nolte, also of Elgin. In late 1889 Nolte began constructing on the property an adobe residence with 20inch-thick sun-dried bricks molded on the site. The house was completed in February 1890. At that time, the three-room adobe was located at the easternmost edge of Alpine-Murphysville. Today, the house rests on three lots at the corner of Second Street and Sul Ross Avenue, the main thoroughfare leading to the Sul Ross campus. Situated in a quiet, tree-shaded neighborhood of primarily older residences, the house faces the historic First Methodist Church (also a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark) and parsonage and the historic Church of Christ.

The more than the 100-year-old building is completely American in an original way: the architecture is a marriage of centuries-old Hispanic and 19th-century Anglo traditions. Embracing its Spanish Colonial heritage, the adobe reflects typical Southwestern construction that is adapted to Territorial or rural American innovations primarily introduced via the railroad. The framed cedar-shingled pitched roof, bay window, and gable trim are Queen Anne style influences to an otherwise typical Victorian vernacular L-plan house (modified c. 1900 to a U-shape). The adobe blocks are laid on a foundation of fieldstone and rubble stone and are covered in the rolled galvanized tin to give the impression of brick. The tin is innovative protection over the adobe, completely original and indigenous. Although a number of buildings in the area are constructed of adobe, the use of tin over adobe blocks is somewhat unusual.

In 1893 Nolte sold Lots 1 and 2 with the house to John M. Rooney, the eldest son of a pioneer Big Bend ranching family. On February 14, 1887, the organization of the newly-created Brewster County from Presidio County began with Rooney elected first commissioner. In 1890 Rooney was elected the second sheriff of Brewster County. Rooney enlarged the original three-room adobe by adding a bedroom on the west side c. 1900.

Rooney purchased the remaining lots of Block 22 in 1898 from a Sheriff's Sale. Rooney left Alpine in 1911 for his ranch in Fort Stockton and sold Lots 1 and 2 to Newt Gourley, who served two terms as county sheriff from 1924-1930 and 1933-1936. Rooney also sold the rest of Block 22 to John W. Kokernot and Green Haver, who in 1912 deeded the property to Gourley. Kokernot had arrived in the Presidio County with brother Lee; they founded the Lazy K ranch, which later became the Kokernot 06 ranch, one of the largest spreads in Texas ranching history. Green Haver was a Buffalo Soldier and the baker at Fort Davis. The first Catholic service in Alpine was held in Haver's home in 1892.

Gourley sold the Nolte-Rooney House and all of Block 22 to Claude Matthews, who later sold it all to his brother Morton. The Matthews family was another prominent ranching family in early Big Bend history. In 1914 Morton Matthews sold Block 22 to Joe Jackson and Sam Harmon, names still highly revered in local and state history. Jackson was an ex-ranger and trail driver who settled in Alpine in 1882. The Jackson-Harmon Cattle Company developed the largest ranch in West Texas. A great philanthropist and promoter, Jackson helped push through legislation for the creation of Sul Ross Normal College (today Sul Ross State University); he is known as "the Father of Sul Ross." Additionally, Jackson-Harmon donated land for the city cemetery, and Jackson chaired numerous civic organizations in Brewster County as well as being president of the Texas Cattle Raisers Association and board member for several universities.

Between World War I and World War II, Alpine rapidly grew despite two earlier devastating fires, in 1907 and one in 1911. Following the wave of early ranchers were the merchants who quickly built the downtown area. As the business expanded, so did the housing industry and the demand for pre-existing homes. Jackson and Harmon sold part of Block 22 to Joe E. Burgess, who managed the Radford Grocery Company in Alpine from his arrival in 1915 from Abilene, Texas, until his retirement in 1946. Burgess had purchased the remainder of the block by 1935. In 1920 the incorporated City of Alpine built the city's water storage system and constructed the first sewer system. Up until then Alpine's sewer system consisted of "outhouses." behind each house and building. This construction coincides with the addition of an indoor bathroom in the Nolte-Rooney House. The kitchen also was probably added at this time and the windmill was dismantled and the water well filled in.

Jackson and Harmon sold the Nolte-Rooney House and a portion of Lot 3 in 1920 to Paul Q. Mills, a jeweler who had moved to Alpine in 1917. Mills sold the house to Walter Measday, a member of another pioneer ranching family who operated the Holland Hotel. Measday quickly sold the property to J.A. Dunlap, another Alpine businessman who, along with Jackson, was responsible for paving and curbing Sul Ross Avenue (then College Avenue), Second Street, and Avenue B surrounding the Nolte-Rooney House. It may have been during this time that the original wooden porch on the historic adobe was replaced with a concrete addition.

Lorenzo and Anna Belle Harris, who purchased the property from Joe Burgess' widow, improved and enlarged the house during the 30+ years they were tenants. The bathroom off the west bedroom was added, the screened back porch on the kitchen was enclosed and the yard was landscaped. Mr. and Mrs. Harris also added a single-car garage onto the existing one-car garage as well as a potting shed. One small outbuilding used as a tool shed remains on the northwest portion of the property. James Hindman, a former professor at Sul Ross and currently president of Angelo State University, bought the Nolte-Rooney House from John Dow Harris, son of Lorenzo and Anna Belle and currently president of the Sul Ross Ex-Students' Association.

When the current owner -- a Sul Ross graduate, active preservationist, and writer/publisher -- began restoration of the house in 1990, she uncovered the following poem written and painted by Mrs. L.D. Harris on the original north wall in the kitchen:

God bless the corners of this house, And be the lintel blessed; And bless the heart and bless the board, And bless each place of rest; And bless each door that opens wide To stranger and to kin; And bless each crystal windowpane That lets the starlight in; And bless the rooftree overhead And every sturdy wall; The peace of man, the peace of God The peace of love on all.

The combination of Hispanic and Anglo architectural traditions makes the Nolte-Rooney House an excellent representative of domestic architecture from the late 19th century and one of the most intact examples remaining in Alpine. The property is eligible under Criterion C in the area of Architecture at the local level of significance.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1997.