James Dunn Houston was born November 18, 1851, in DeWitt County, Texas. He was one of six children born to James Andrew Dunn and Julia A. Harris Houston, native Mississippians. James Dunn came to Gonzales County in 1864. When he was eighteen years old he engaged in the cattle business and drove his herds north to Kansas for pasturage. On December 2, 1873, he married Dora Chenault, daughter of Felix Chenault of Tennessee and Eliza Polk Chenault of Texas. When Dunn was twenty-three, he and his brother, R. A. Houston, bought interest in a ranch in the Texas Panhandle. They sold their interest in that ranch in 1882 for $525,000 which for that time was a huge transaction, even for Texas. He and his brother began buying land and, in 1883, purchased a 6,000 acre ranch on the Pecos River. This, along with other land he owned in Gonzales County, totaled over 22,000 acres. The magnitude of the Houston ranching empire is indicated by two articles in the March 17, 1884, edition of The Gonzales Inquirer. One article states that “J.D. Houston and others are shipping 10,000 head of cattle to Witchita Falls.” The other article relates that “J.D. and W.B. Houston will have 3,000 – 4,000 head of two year olds on the trail in two weeks.”
It took Dunn several years to build his home at 619 St. Lawrence Street. Construction on the red brick structure was begun in 1895 and completed in 1898. The Queen Anne Victorian style house has fifteen main rooms, five bathrooms and several halls and walkways. It has an indoor conservatory and each of the main rooms has its own individually designed fireplace. The floors throughout the first story are oak hardwood with an original parquet pattern. Light fixtures in the family dining room, banquet room, living room and foyer hang from elaborately carved medallions matching the molding around the rooms. Two wall murals painted on canvas, purchased in New Orleans when the house was built, still grace the foyer. The house was sold to Mr. and Mrs. George Norwood Dilworth in 1900. The Dilworth’s widowed daughter, Margaret Dilworth Lewis, and her children, Susan and Jim, moved into the house with her parents. Margaret lived in the house until her death in 1950.
Dunn left Gonzales in 1900 and moved to San Antonio where he remained until his death January 1, 1920. At the time of his death he was president of the Lockwood National Bank. He is buried in Mission Memorial Park Cemetery in San Antonio. Dora died July 5, 1931, and is buried next to her husband.
