Bonner-Whitaker-McClendon House Provides Elegant Educational Site
bonner-whitaker-mcclendon house, culture, education, historic preservation, history, sarah mcclendon,
Since the days when Queen Victoria sat on the throne of England, the Bonner-Whitaker-McClendon House has served as a backdrop for all of life’s highlights in Tyler.
“Gala events, political strategy sessions, major business transactions, births, deaths and a lot of good living” have taken place in the historic home, says Daye Collins, board president of the Bonner-Whitaker-McClendon House Society, a nonprofit organization that oversees operation of the house.
Today, it remains a memory-making place, with its Eastlake Bracketed Victorian architecture and the shadows of previous occupants lurking in the corners. The late Washington news correspondent Sarah McClendon was even born there.
Today’s tour guides teach visitors about East Texas history from the pre-Civil War era to the 1980s, and the nonprofit organization hosts murder mystery dinners and grand Victorian Christmas tours. There are even Spirit Tours conducted on October weekends, when visitors can call on the spirits of former residents.
The two-story house was built in the 1870s on land Judge M.H. Bonner bought from his former law partner, J. Pinckney Henderson – the first governor of Texas. Bonner gave two of site’s more than 200 acres to his daughter, Mattie, who with her husband built the house at West Houston and Vine. Features of the home were a gasification power plant and a grass tennis court.
After the last two McClendon sisters moved out in the 1980s, the home was restored. It was opened to the public in 1988 as the Designer Showcase for Historic Tyler’s Azalea Trail Heritage Tour.
The house is recognized as a Tyler Historical Landmark and is listed on the Texas Historic Record and the National Register of Historic Places.
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