Texas Log Cabins

The village exists because someone noticed the cabins were vanishing. Clio's account says that in the 1950s the Pioneer Texas Heritage Committee and the Tarrant County Historical Society chose six North Texas log houses, took them apart, numbered the logs and rebuilt them in Forest Park. It credits historian Fred R. Cotton with the idea and says a plan for each town to keep its own cabins proved unworkable, so Fort Worth became the site. The park board took over in 1965, and the village opened in April 1966. The Foster house arrived in 1974.

What the plaque says

Texas Log Cabins These authentic log cabins, built by pioneers 100 years ago, recall a way of life in early Texas when great courage was required to meet the hardships of frontier existence. Constant threats from Indians, poor crops, adverse weather, primitive living conditions did not stop these ingenious people from developing a wilderness into a land of opportunity. The log cabin, a familiar sight in Cross Timbers country of North Texas, was most readily available type of construction to the pioneer and his family. He was too far from a mill to obtain "box lumber." Skill, stamina were needed when preparing logs with such tools as the axe, broad and adze. Styles of fitting corners included "quarter notch" and "dovetail." Oak, cedar and heart pine woods were used. The cabin was a welcome sight to neighbors and saddle-sore travelers. Each told a personal story of frontier life and the family that lived within. The Tomkins cabin was a landmark on Ft. Worth-Belknap Road; visitors were welcome. Isaac Parker cabin was the last home of Cynthia Ann Parker after she was taken from her Comanche family in 1860. This Log Cabin Village was created so that part of the spirit of the Texas frontier would survive. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 1.6 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 2.0 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.
• Tarrant County Courthouse — 3.0 mi
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 4.8 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.

More markers nearby

• Fort Worth Zoological Park — steps away
• First Hundred Years of Texas Christian University — 0.8 mi
• Mary Daggett Lake — 1.1 mi
• Elizabeth Boulevard — 1.5 mi