A sad day for Texas

A lot has changed in Texas in the last 152 years. However, since 1856, the Governor of Texas has always lived in the same white house in Austin right across the street from the Capital Building. The Texas Governor’s Mansion is both a State and National Historical Monument.


I was very sad to hear this morning that "a catastrophic blaze ravaged the elegant white mansion, cratered its roof and covered its signature columns with thick soot."








Luckily no one was in the mansion when the fire broke out as it was undergoing renovations. Gov. Rick Perry (aka Gov. Good Hair) and his family moved out last fall before renovations began. The Governor has since been blasted for the $10,000 a month rent the state is paying for his temporary housing. Looks like the State might need to renegotiate that lease for an additional year or more! Thank goodness all the priceless antique furniture as well as the mansion's extensive Texas historical art collection also moved out last Fall and are safe in storage. Since Sam Houston, it is tradition for each first family to leave some special piece of furniture in the mansion when they leave office. All of those special pieces are also safely stored away. Had the fire happened when the house was full, the loss would have been even more tragic.

Sari is in Atlanta today. She called me when she heard about the Governors Mansion so we could be sad about it together. That may seem a little weird to some. But you see, as far back as I can remember, my Dad worked for the Texas Highway Department. I think we got a discount rate at many state parks and museums. So 95% of our family vacations were to historic sites in Texas. Sari and I may have been bored at times, but we grew up appreciating our State!

As a young girl I remember visiting the Capital then going across the street to tour of the public portion of the Governor's Mansion. I remember hearing how after one of his children was hurt, a Governor hammered nails into the mansions long tall banister to keep his kids from sliding down it. The guide let me put my finger on one of those nail holes. Since you can't touch ANYTHING in most historic places, I thought it was cool that I got to touch the hole made by a Governor so very long ago.

When I was in college, my parents went to dinner at the Governors Mansion when Bill Clements was in his last term. My mother 's school won an award from the Governor and he and the first lady hosted a dinner for 12 at "their house" that night. Mom said it was one of the most exciting dinners of her life. So when Sari and I heard about the fire we felt like a little piece of our own personal history had been destroyed.

Before the fire.

We Texans are quite proud of our Governor's Mansion and it will certainly be rebuilt. But even so, Texas lost precious history today. Yes they can renovate, restore and rebuild, but some things are just irreplaceable. You can not replicate the mill work made 152 years ago. Some of the hardwoods used to build the Governor's Mansion don't even exist today. The floors and walls can be rebuilt. But when you walk on new floors, you can't say that Sam Houston walked on them. You can't look at new walls and know they stood beside a Governor who upon hearing the news that a hurricane had practically flattened Galveston and killed over 6000 people was reduced to tears and yelled out to God asking why so many innocents had to die. (102 years later, no natural disaster has ever killed more Americans.) Yes, when that big white house burned today, Texas lost many connections to her past.

This afternoon, midst the talk of arson and the delicate balance being struck between crime scene investigation and historical preservation, there were reports that not everything inside Mansion was lost... I'm hoping that the banister with the nail holes survived!