Porter, William Sidney, House
a.k.a. O. Henry House
409 E. 5th S., Austin, TXThe small,frame cottage in the Eastlake style, at 409 East 5th Street is the only extant residence in Austin in which William Sidney Porter (1862-1910) lived.
Porter was born in Greensboro, North Carolina on September 11, 1862, and came to Texas in 1882. In 1884, at the age of twenty-two, he settled in Austin. During this period he held various jobs including working in a drug store and becoming a real estate agent. From 1887 to 1891, he worked as a draftsman in the General Land Office, located on the Capitol grounds. From 1891 until 1894, he worked as a bank teller in the First National Bank (then located at 6th and Congress streets, in Austin.)
On July 5, 1887, Porter married Athol Estes. After living in various houses, the Porter family moved in 1893 to the residence which is now called the O. Henry Museum. At this time, the structure was located at 308 E. Fourth Street, a few blocks from its present location. The Porter family lived in the house for two years. It was during this period (1894) that Porter resigned his position in the bank to give all his time to editing a humorous weekly. The Rolling Stone. When the venture failed in 1895, Porter moved to Houston, where he wrote for the Houston Daily Post.
In 1896 Porter was summoned to Austin to stand trail for the alleged embezzlement of funds from the First National Bank, where he had been employed as a teller. Rather than obeying the summons. Porter fled to New Orleans and then to Honduras. Returning to Austin in 1897 to visit his sick wife. Porter was arrested and in March, 1898, was sentenced to the federal penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio.
While in prison. Porter wrote under various pseudonyms. Eventually, the name, "Q. Henry", displaced all the others. In 1902, after his release from prison, he went to New York to continue his writing. Among Porter's most famous stories are "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Ransom of Red Chief."
Bibliography
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
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.