Monday, January 9, 2017

A landmark West Dallas farmhouse faces an uncertain future


Robert Wilonsky of The Dallas Morning News reports on a piece of Dallas history about to be lost to time, unless the community steps up.

The Victorian farmhouse shown here, located at 1923 N. Edgefield, is one of the oldest homes in the area, and holds some historical significance. for it to survive, however, it needs to be moved.

The Dallas Morning News provides details.
It was built around 1890 and, shortly after, became the home of German immigrants Heinrich and Anna Struck, who, according to the state historical marker planted at the nearby Western Heights Cemetery, were early Dallas pioneers. And it appears it was once a centerpiece of a 43-acre housing development — the first of its kind west of downtown — assembled by the man known, correctly or otherwise, as Dallas' first architect.
That very brief and vague history — which, at present, comes with one significant question mark — has preservationists scrambling to save the house that an unnamed developer eyeing the land wants to vanish in order to build townhomes in a West Dallas neighborhood that, as of now, has no multi-family housing of any kind. This week the recently formed Dallas Endowment for Endangered Properties, which hopes to buy and preserve what remains of this city's fast-vanishing history, has been sounding the social-media alarm bells in the hopes of raising enough money to move the house from a quiet stretch of North Edgefield Avenue, between Commerce Street and Fort Worth Avenue, to five acres in Oak Cliff awaiting its arrival. The clock is running -- three months and counting, tick, tock.
To find out more about the home, click right here to visit the Dallas Morning News.