Part 5, Note 32
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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.