Harrell House

It took four owners and 34 years to build the Harrell House, which was situated in a quiet draw beside Hackberry Creek in Scurry County. It only took sisters Fay and Myrtle Harrell, plus “a jackleg carpenter,” almost two years to totally restore it from near dilapidation. The dwelling sheltered families during the era that began with free-range ranching and ended with barbed wire and agriculture. The Harrell House is typical of home expansion. The rancher or farmer could ill afford to discard any building. As families grew and fortunes improved, houses expanded.

The structure began as a single stacked-rock room built by either Fred Williamson or J.K. Smith. The house was then sold to R.T. Mellard. Mellard added two box and strip rooms to the east side of the stone house. He sold the house to Lon and Lillie Smith, who added the remaining rooms and porches. They sold the house to Phineas and Roseannah Reynolds in 1917, who sold it and the ranch to Charles J. Harrell in 1934. The Harrells continued to live in Snyder rather than in the old house.

Over the years, the dwelling and its varied additions fell into a state of ruin while Charles Harrell tended the ranching operation. His unmarried daughters, Fay and Myrtle, earned degrees from Hardin-Simmons University and worked as school teachers. When their father became ill, they took up ranching seriously. They continued to live in Snyder but drove a pickup to work on the ranch.

Some years later, the sisters began to restore and decorate the Harrell House. Construction experts insisted the house couldn’t be reclaimed. But the Harrells found a carpenter willing to help them. What couldn’t be repaired was duplicated from old houses being razed in Snyder. The chimneys had collapsed and were completely rebuilt. It took them more than a year in 1961-1963 before the house was ready for furnishing. The Harrell sisters set out to restore the house to their vision of what a typical Texas ranch house would resemble in the early 20th century using as a reference a legal inventory of household items recorded in 1917 when Lon and Lillie Smith sold the house.

When the sisters’ retreat was ready, people who had heard about the restoration project swarmed the creek bed “in praise of the history preserved in the face of great odds” by the determined women. The house was a focal point of historical tours, which pointed out that restoration was possible, even when it seemed futile. Then the unusual home caught the attention of the Ranch Headquarters Planning Committee. After much soul searching, the Harrell sisters decided to donate their project to the NRHC for preservation in Proctor Park