Botts-Fowler House
115 N. Fourth Ave., Mansfield, TXThe Botts-Fowler House is a modest dwelling in Mansfield that was built by local contractor W.L. Graves about 1900. It is currently used as a house and restaurant by the Botts-Fowler family.
Named for its original and longest residents, the Botts-Fowler House in Mansfield was built in 1886 by local builder William Bratton and features a rear addition and spindlework detailing added by local contractor W.L. Graves about 1900. Bratton built the this modest dwelling on the outskirts of Mansfield's original town plat for A.J. Botts, one of Mansfield's early merchants. Botts ran a grocery store on Main Street and owned the house until 1895. The property had several locally notable occupants between 1895 and 1911, including Reverend Ernest Daniel Lisha Tims, Doctor James Truett Stephens, and prominent merchant and banker John Howard Wright. In 1911, Andrew M. Fowler, a prominent resident who improved and expanded Mansfield's water system in 1904, bought the house which the Fowler family occupied for several decades. This 1 -story, L-plan house features decorative shingles and a delicate spindlework frieze and balustrade on the front porch, thus typifying the type of modest residences built in Mansfield's during the tum of the century. For its direct associations with Mansfield's early development and growth patterns, the Botts-Fowler House meets Criterion A in the area of Community Planning and Development at the local level of significance.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.