O. Henry

In Austin, Porter lodged with the Joseph Harrell family and sang with the Hill City Quartette. The pen name first appears in these years, said to come from his habit of calling "Oh, Henry" to the family cat. In 1887 he became a draftsman in the General Land Office under Dick Hall, on whose La Salle County ranch he had herded sheep with Webster's Unabridged Dictionary for company. He is believed to have illustrated J. W. Wilbarger's Indian Depredations in Texas. In 1894 he founded a humor weekly, the Rolling Stone, which failed within a year.

What the plaque says

O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, Sept. 11, 1862 - June 5, 1910) Born in Greensboro, N.C., moved to Texas in 1882, and lived on a ranch near Cotulla. Came to Austin in 1884, and in addition to writing, worked as a pharmacist, musician, draftsman, and bank teller. His first nationally published short story appeared in 1897. Porter began writing under the name O. Henry during three years spent in prison. The 381 stories published while in New York, 1902-10, won him international fame. O. Henry's collected works have been translated into 10 languages. This mid-1890s home of Porter, his wife Athol, and their daughter, opened as a museum in 1934. (1974)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.4 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Texas State Capitol — 0.6 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Texas State Cemetery — 0.8 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• George Washington Carver Museum — 0.9 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.

More markers nearby

• Site of the Official Residence of Mirabeau B. Lamar — steps away
• Site of John Bremond & Company — 0.2 mi
• Original Site of First Methodist Church of Austin — 0.3 mi
• F. Weigl Iron Works — 0.3 mi