{"nrhp_refnum":"04000893","name":"Porter, Katherine Anne, House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"508 W. Center St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Kyle","county":"Hays County","state":"TX","lat":29.98944434300006,"lon":-97.87985445799995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2004-08-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Literature","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-story, wood-frame L-plan house at 508 West Center Street in Kyle, Hays County, Texas, built between about 1886 and 1890 on two city lots in the original railroad townsite. The site also holds a mounting stone, a modern seminar room and a doll house.","why_significant":"The house is nominated under Criterion B as the childhood home of author Katherine Anne Porter, who lived there from 1892 to 1902 and set several of her best short stories in Kyle and this house. It is also nominated under Criterion C as a rare, little-altered example of an early vernacular L-plan house in Kyle, distinguished by its intersecting hipped roofs. The form argues for national significance.","narrative":"Built between about 1886 and 1890 in the railroad town of Kyle, Texas, this one-story wood-frame house on West Center Street is an L-plan dwelling with weatherboard siding, a shed-roof front porch with chamfered posts, and intersecting hipped roofs that set it apart from other L-plan houses in the area. A limestone mounting stone beside the house survives from the earliest period. The property matters chiefly for its link to author Katherine Anne Porter, who came here with her family in 1892 to live with her grandmother and stayed until 1902. Her years in the house, though often unhappy, supplied settings for stories such as The Fig Tree, Old Mortality and The Old Order. Porter later won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for her Collected Stories. The house has seen little alteration, has been restored, and is now one of Kyle's few surviving early homes. A modern seminar building and a doll house on the lot do not contribute to its historic character.","period_of_significance":"1890-1902","architect_builder":"unknown","architectural_style":"Other: L-plan","criteria":["B","C"],"status_note":"Described as in excellent condition after extensive repair and restoration; used as a single dwelling and as a meeting hall, with a seminar building used for literary seminars and community meetings.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:23.758178-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/81/9695/40969581/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/04000893.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/04000893/f3f705ad67-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/04000893/f3f705ad67-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 4.0","author":"Larry D. Moore","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Katherine_anne_porter_house_2009.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Larry D. Moore</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Katherine_anne_porter_house_2009.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40969581","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Anne_Porter_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6376292"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/hays-county/porter-katherine-anne-house-04000893/"}