Historical Marker

Robert S. Stanley House

Historical marker location:
1811 Newton, Austin, Texas
( 1811 Newton)
Marker installed: 2001

Travis County native Robert S. Stanley (1863-1941), an African-American stonemason and laborer, built this home for his wife Francis and their children in 1895. He later built a stone building on West Mary Street (1927) which his second wife Jennie operated as a general store. The front-gabled vernacular house exhibits Stanley's craftmanship in its rusticate load-bearing and veneer limestone constructino, two-foot thick stone half-basement, and longleaf pine framing and floors. The house remained in the Stanley family for more than a century. Stanley is buried at Austin's Evergreen Cemetery.Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-2001.

The first oil well in the United States was drilled in Texas in 1859. The discovery of oil transformed the economy of the state and helped to make Texas one of the wealthiest states in the nation.