Nelson Farmstead

Settled in 1861 by Robert Carroll Nelson, the first permanent inhabitant of the Woodbine community, this Cooke County farmstead preserves a nearly complete record of rural life from the Civil War era through the Great Depression. Nelson built a one-and-a-half-story log house of hewn post oak with half-dovetail notching, later expanded with an enclosed rear porch and a detached kitchen. His son Edward added a single-crib log and timber barn before 1905, using logs salvaged from the original Nelson Grove School. A stone-lined well, a Civilian Conservation Corps outhouse, curved soil-conservation terraces and a 1945 hog barn complete the six contributing resources. Both the house and barn are typical of Texas log building traditions, and the terracing reflects federal farm relief efforts of the 1930s. The interior retains original oak floors and log finishes. The listing covers roughly 159 of the original 160 acres, and the period of significance runs from 1861 to 1936.