Fannin Avenue, corner of West Owings Street
Denison, Texas
ca1900

"Phillip Curry, Mother Curry, Ella Tindall, corner of Fannin Ave and Owings St.". 
Identification of the photo is taken from notations on the back, captions in a photo album, or from similar images in the same collection.
Source: eBay, Sept 2014. 
Collection of Mavis Anne Bryant.

A timeline for the “Curry House”
at South Fannin Ave and West Owings St.
Addresses used for the house:  319 S. Fannin and 501 W. Owings

 

1887 — A search of the Denison City Directory yielded no results for either address.
Philip (one ell) Curry, an engineer for MoPac, is listed “r. 718 W. Main.”

1888 — The house appears for the first time on the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps (the Sanborn map for 1885 does not extend as far south as Owings Street). The house is the only brick structure in its immediate vicinity. The bay window facing Owings is visible on the map drawing. A frame front porch faces Fannin. The address shown on the map is 319 S. Fannin Av.

1891-92 — Denison City Directory shows “319 S. Fannin ave.” to be the residence of Theophilus R. Friddell, a mechanic. No other occurrences of the address were returned in a directory search.
Phillip (two ells) Curry, a Katy engineer, is listed “r. 1002 W. Owings cor Chandler ave.”

1892 — The drawing of the property on the Sanborn map is unchanged, except for the addition of a small frame outbuilding, west of the house at the northern boundary of the lot.

1896-97 — Denison City Directory shows “Shockey Almina, wid Geo W, fur rms, r 319 S Fannin.” Also “Shockey Ella G Miss, steno, r 319 S Fannin ave.” It was apparently a rooming house, or at least one modified to accommodate more than a single family. No other residents turn up in the search.
Phillip Curry, Katy engineer, is still listed at 1002 W Owings.

1897 — The drawing of the house on the Sanborn Map is unchanged.

1898-99 — Denison City Directory does not list 319 S. Fannin in the street directory section. It does show 501 W. Owings, occupied by W. W. & Sadie Newsome. But in the alphabetical listings Wm. W. Newsome, an insurance agent with an office at 218 W. Main, is shown residing at 519 S. Fannin, a nonexistent address. If it had existed, it would have been beside the railroad tracks running through the Katy Shops & Yards south of Morgan Street. Inference: “519” is a misprint of “319.”
Phillip & Lydia Curry are still listed at 1002 W. Owings.

1899 — The Sunday Gazetteer reported on May 28, “The wife of Mr. Charles P. Tindall, at 520 Crawford street, died this morning (Saturday) about 1 o’clock, after an illness of three weeks. The remains will be taken to Hanibal [sic], Mo., for interment.” Sometime within the next 13 months Charles, a Katy brakeman, married Ella Davidson, the woman identified on the back of the Curry photo as Ella Tindall. Note that 520 Crawford is just a block north and a block west of the house where the photo with Ella was taken.

1900 — On June 6 the U. S. Census taker enumerated two families in a house identified as 501 W. Owings Street. One family was headed by Dr. John Owensby, 46, of Georgia. With him were his wife Mary, 44, his son Moreland, 18, and his brother Daniel, 35. Moreland was an insurance agent, and Daniel was a carpenter.
The other family was headed by Eugene Hulse, 30, of Louisiana. With him were his wife Josephine, 24, and his sister Mary, also 24. Eugene was a brakeman and Josephine was an art teacher.

The Sunday Gazetteer reported on June 24, “Mr. Charles P. Tindall, Mrs. Tindall, son Claud and daughter Gheanell, have returned from a visit to points in Missouri.” This establishes that Charles married the former Ella Davidson sometime prior to June 24, 1900, but later than May 28, 1899, when his previous wife, Louisa, died (see above). The fact that Ella is identified as Ella Tindall on the back of the photo does not prove she was married to Charles at the time it was taken, but it’s a point to consider.

1901 — Phillip Curry died February 10. I don’t know where they were living at the time, but he (1832-1901) and wife Lydia (1829-1913) are both buried in Fairview Cemetery in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Their Find A Grave memorials include a photo of their shared gravestone. In the February 17 edition of The Sunday Gazetteer the Denison post of the G. A. R. published an expression of sympathy for the relatives and friends of both Phillip Curry and E. S. Wiley, Bessie Mason’s brother, who was killed at a railroad crossing on Mirick Avenue about two weeks before Phillip’s death.

1901-02 — Denison City Directory, published after March 1, 1901, shows both the Owensby and Hulse families still at 501 W. Owings, the same place they were living on the June 6, 1900, Census date.
Charles P. Tindall, now a Katy conductor, is listed “r. over 325 E. Crawford.” The directional may be a misprint. In the 1891 City Directory the widowed mother of Ella Davidson, who would become Ella Tindall about nine years later, is listed at 325 W. Crawford. 1901-02 is the last year that Charles and Ella are listed in Denison. He lived until 1948, and she lived until 1951. They share a gravestone in Oakwood Cemetery in Wewoka, OK.

Philip (one ell) Curry, a Katy engineer, is listed “r. 130 E. Bullock,” but he may not be the same deceased Katy engineer who was married to Lydia. In the 1906 City Directory for Shawnee, OK, Lydia Curry is listed as the widow of Phillip (two ells). Another engineer for a different railroad is listed in Shawnee with the name Philip (one ell) Curry. Living with Lydia in Shawnee is her daughter, Millie Curry, a bookkeeper. In 1895 Millie married a man named Claypool in Denison, but apparently it didn’t last. In the 1900 Census she was already back home with Phillip and Lydia, still in Denison, using the name Millie Curry again.

1903 — The drawing of the house on the Sanborn map is unchanged.

1908 — The drawing of the house on the Sanborn map shows a frame back porch added to the west of the bay window, in the area where the two women are standing in the photograph.

1914 — The drawing of the house on the Sanborn map shows still another small frame porch added on the north side of the building, at the west end.

1930 — On the Sanborn map the number 501 has been added to the Owings Street side. The number 319 remains on the Fannin Avenue side. The drawing of the house is substantially changed. The entire building, including the brick portion, has been reduced to a single story. The whole area in the photograph where the three people are standing has been enclosed in a frame addition. The front porch on the east side has been widened toward Fannin. The outline suggests that the house could still rest on the original footprint, if not the original foundation. It’s not possible to tell from the drawing whether any of the original building above or below ground level remains. I wonder whether the old KRRV building incorporates any part of the original house.

After 1930 — Radio KRRV continued to use the 319 S. Fannin address (in some instances, at least) in advertising and city directory entries in the 1940s and 1950s. Neither the Fannin Avenue nor the Owings Street address is currently listed in the Grayson CAD. The USPS does not deliver mail to either address. The property may have been acquired by the city.

Conclusion:  I began constructing this timeline thinking it might lead me to discover when the Curry family lived in the house and when the photograph of them outside it may have been taken. So far as I have been able to determine, the photo is the only record of the presence of the three persons shown in it at that address. If forced to guess, I would say it was taken after the first Mrs. Tindall died in May of 1899, but before the census taker found the Owensby and Hulse families living there a year later. That’s roughly the second half of 1899 through the first half of 1900. And since the photo is already dated “circa 1900,” I’d say that works pretty well.

 

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