Part 5

Part 5, Note 32

Weimar Mercury, February 18, 1922; Colorado County Commissioners Court Minutes, Book 2, p. 246; Colorado County Citizen, October 5, 1933; Sanborn Maps, City of Columbus, 1890, 1896, 1900; Colorado Citizen, October 3, 1857, November 27, 1858, December 8, 1860. The Baptist Church was on block 18 near the corner of Live Oak and Washington Streets, the Harbert Building, on block 8 near the corner of Walnut and Milam Streets, the Foard House on block 46 near the corner of Walnut and Live Oak Streets, the Darden House, on block 46 adjacent to the Foard House and near the corner of Walnut and Prairie Streets, the Townsend House, on block 35 facing Milam Street, and the Dilue Rose Harris House on block 18 near the corner of Washington and Bowie Streets. The 1933 article cited above identifies the fourth house as the Baldwin Hill House. On March 25, 1929, Baldwin Hill and his wife, Alice, purchased what is now known as the Dilue Rose Harris House and the property on which it stands from Angela Stein for $3300 (see Colorado County Deed Records, Book 84, p. 300). The Hills sold the property to A. J. Brune on November 11, 1937 (see Colorado County Deed Records, Book 101, p. 488). Since the Hills owned the house in 1933, and since it is evidently constructed of the same materials listed in the newspaper article, it is reasonable to conclude that the Dilue Rose Harris House was the same house identified in the article as the Baldwin Hill House. The article chronicled the destruction of the Townsend house to make way for a playground for the nearby school, leaving the Dilue Rose Harris House as the only one of the seven buildings that remained standing. The Townsend House was apparently constructed in 1859, for when it was demolished, a newspaper bearing the date of January 1, 1859 was discovered in the door frame (see Colorado County Citizen, October 5, 1933). Fannie Amelia Dickson Darden purchased the residence of William H. and Margaret A. Gazeley, at the site of the house that came to be known as the Darden House, on December 31, 1861 for $2700 ($1200 in cash plus a slave named Jim that was valued at $1500) (see Colorado County Deed Records, Book L, p. 216). Clearly, some kind of house was already on the property. The Gazeleys had purchased the two lots on which their residence would sit a little less than eight years earlier, on March 11, 1854, for $200. It seems reasonable to conclude that they built the house shortly thereafter (see Colorado County Deed Records, Book I, p. 109). Robert Levi Foard purchased the lot on which his house was built, and an adjoining lot, on May 19, 1857 for $200. The fact that improvements are not mentioned, and the price of the lots, which matches exactly that that the Gazeleys paid for two seemingly vacant lots on the same block three years earlier, are strong evidence that the Foard lots were then vacant. Again, it seems reasonable to conclude that Foard built his home on the lots soon after he bought them (see Colorado County Deed Records, Book J, pp. 389, 395). Ira Albert Harris, the husband of Dilue Rose Harris, purchased the property on which the house that would bear his wife's name would sit, on December 9, 1857. He paid $450 for a single lot and the improvements on it. He purchased the adjacent lot, lot 5, on July 7, 1858 for $288 (see Colorado County Deed Records, Book J, pp. 547, 711).
Modern concrete is a mixture of sand, gravel, and a bonding agent known as portland cement. Portland cement was invented and named in 1824, but not fully developed until about 1850. It was not manufactured in the United States until after the Civil War. Earlier concretes had substituted other bonding agents, including lime. Probably, lime-based concrete was used in Columbus buildings only until the more substantial portland-cement-based concrete could be easily obtained.