Lost, Hidden, and Saved Homes

Southwest corner of Cotton and Fredonia

Date of construction: 1874
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Razed: 1939

Dr. C. W. Lawrence of Alabama, a graduate of Jefferson College in Philadelphia, migrated to Longview from a town near Neches, Texas in 1878. He practiced medicine in Longview for almost 50 years and retired just before his death in 1928.

He moved to the grand 2-story home at the corner of Cotton and Fredonia in the 1880’s.

Dr. Lawrence practiced during a time when doctors officed at the drug stores and got their daytime calls there. He opened one of Longview’s first drug stores on Tyler Street and owned the first telephone in town. The phone was a small box on the wall at his home with a mallet attached to the top. The phone connected his home and office, simple but expedient in emergencies.

A progressive man, he was also one of the first doctors in Longview to make the change from horse and buggy to automobile.

The Lawrence home became a familiar landmark until the late 1930’s, when it was razed to make way for commercial progress.