{"id":93,"featured":0,"modified":"2026-04-17 19:32:46","latitude":30.71441078999099971724717761389911174774169921875,"longitude":-95.5535137653349693209747783839702606201171875,"title":"Steamboat House","subtitle":"","fullsize":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/616c1d8bf496b55b432e244b7f8e8574.jpg","address":"","all_locations":[],"zoom":19,"creator":["Briana Weaver","Katherine Gaskamp"],"description":"In 1855, Dr. Rufus W. Bailey, a Dartmouth educated minister and attorney, moved to Huntsville, Texas, to serve as a language professor at Austin College. After acquiring an eight acre tract of land in Huntsville, he commissioned a large home to be built in 1858. According to popular legend, Bailey intended to present the new structure, which he named Buena Vista, to his son and daughter-in-law as a wedding present. Upon first sight, however, the young couple refused to live in the eccentrically designed building, which featured twin front turrets and riverboat side galleries on two lengthy floors. <br />\r\n <br />\r\nBy 1862, Bailey’s well-intentioned wedding gift -- now known the “Steamboat House” -- had sat empty for many months. This situation made it possible for Sam Houston, the recently deposed Governor of Texas, to rent the building from Bailey upon his return to Huntsville. Wartime pressures and health problems constantly plagued Sam Houston during the last year of  his life. As his persistent cough turned into pneumonia, Houston’s strength declined. On June 26, 1863, the old general passed away in the front room of the Steamboat House. The next day family and friends held funeral services in the upstairs parlor of the house, followed by a burial in nearby Oakwood Cemetery. <br />\r\n <br />\r\nWith the passing of Sam Houston, his family moved out of the home. Rufus Bailey, who had died three months previously, left the Steamboat House to his son, Frank. Once again confronted with ownership of the unusually shaped house, Frank Bailey quickly put the structure up for auction. For the next sixty years the house would pass from one family to another, and it deteriorated over time. In 1936, J.E. Josey donated the Steamboat House to the Sam Houston Memorial Museum. The building was dismantled, moved to the museum grounds, and extensively refurbished. On March 2, 1937 the newly remodeled Steamboat House was opened to the public as part of the Texas Centennial.","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"","lede":"","website":"","related_resources":[],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/616c1d8bf496b55b432e244b7f8e8574.jpg":{"id":866,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Steamboat House located on the Sam Houston Memorial Museum grounds","description":"Sam Houston State University History Department","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/616c1d8bf496b55b432e244b7f8e8574.jpg"},"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/4011efc9050a4f7c24701ce55985e2a2.jpg":{"id":1252,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Steamboat House at its original location","description":"In Adickes Addition of the Oakwood Cemetery off of Martin Luther King Boulevard. Photographed here by Eugenia Angier in December 1926 and viewed from southeast. The house faced west, in a grove of trees on Martin Luther King Boulevard and Ninth Street, just inside the present day Adickes Addition of the Oakwood Cemetery. | Walker County Treasures","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/4011efc9050a4f7c24701ce55985e2a2.jpg"},"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/8a77ec6ac8934aba09c9c5fa7e8864cd.jpg":{"id":1253,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Steamboat House, ca. 1880","description":"Steamboat House, ca. 1885, on its original location on what became the Adickes Addition to the Oakwood Cemetery off of Martin Luther King Boulevard. This photograph was taken while Maj. Thomas J. Goree, the Superintendent of Texas Prisons (1877-1891) owned the home and had remodeled it, using convict labor, to reflect the Victorian architectural style of the period.  <br />\r\n | Walker County Treasures","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/8a77ec6ac8934aba09c9c5fa7e8864cd.jpg"},"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/3f440e2455b4727a845b5d640eb66436.jpg":{"id":1254,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Steamboat House Weaving and Spinning Demonstration","description":"Steamboat House Weaving and Spinning Demonstration with Mrs. Frank B. Burgess and Grace Longino, Museum Director, October 25, 1956. | Walker County Treasures","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/3f440e2455b4727a845b5d640eb66436.jpg"},"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/02f619da926dc7a6f872c3b731046dbf.jpg":{"id":1255,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"The Steamboat House today","description":"Sam Houston State University History Department","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/02f619da926dc7a6f872c3b731046dbf.jpg"},"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/4c928b037872040fe35775dce2925fc4.jpg":{"id":857,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Front upstairs parlor of the Steamboat House and the location of Sam Houston&#039;s funeral services","description":"Sam Houston Memorial Museum","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/4c928b037872040fe35775dce2925fc4.jpg"}}}