James Bayliss Buck Farmstead

James Bayliss Buck (1875-1959), the fourth of seven children to Catherine Patience Bayliss and James Mason Buck, was born on the family tobacco farm near Clarksville, Tennessee. The Buck family moved to Upshur County, Texas, in 1879 and in 1885, James Mason Buck purchased a farm near Fate, Rockwall County, Texas. In 1901, Rev. John W. Bergin, later Southwestern University President, performed the first wedding in the new Travis Methodist Church uniting James Bayliss Buck and Lurah Dorinda Whiteside (1878-1959). Their daughters Reba Cleo and Vita Lona were born in Fate.

Economical land prices in Falls County prompted James Bayliss Buck to purchase acreage near Travis, Texas, in 1904 and move his family to Travis in 1908. James Bayliss Buck and John Franklin Cooley, Lurah’s brother-in-law, completed the farmhouse, barn, smokehouse, outhouse, field dwelling and two water wells in 1909.

Buck followed the vernacular architectural tradition and designed his Travis farm residence after his father’s home in Fate. Described as the gable front and wing configuration of the folk Victorian style, the Buck Farmhouse is balloon framed and exhibits a mix of Queen Anne and Greek Revival influences.

In 1920, Reba Cleo Buck (1902-1993) married immediate neighbor Hubert Thedford Johnson (1902-1988). In 1933, Hubert Johnson became administrator of the Waco Methodist Orphanage where he and Reba developed a nationally-recognized child care institution. Johnson purchased the Buck Farm in 1948. The James Bayliss Buck Farmstead is the best preserved example of the initial farming settlement that once supported the Travis community.

RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK – 2015.