The Hiram B. Reynolds Property

The Reynolds House came down after a long review. In 2013 Fort Hood inspectors found it unsafe and moved out the Red Cross. Asbestos, lead paint, faulty wiring, no fire protection and a failed foundation that left floors uneven made repair too costly, and a local heritage group that looked at restoring it agreed. With the state preservation office's approval, demolition began on April 14, 2015, making it the post's last pre-World War II house to go. The marker stayed nearby, and the Army planned a scaled replica.

What the plaque says

The Hiram B. Reynolds Property Born in Tennessee, Hiram B. Reynolds (1858-1929) came to Texas with his parents in 1866 and lived near Sparta, a locality now absorbed into Fort Hood. He grew up on a farm and received a good education. Going into business, he had stores in Nolanville and Belton, and became a successful cotton broker and investor in farms. He married in 1904 Mrs. Hettie Mize Hall, a widow with three children; the couple had two sons. In 1915, the family moved to Killeen and built this house on one of their farms which was then producing corn, cotton, livestock, and small grains. For the time and place, this was considered an unusually fine structure. It had five bedrooms, a storage room, halls, porches, a parlor, kitchen, dining room, butler's pantry, carbide lights, and a bathroom with fixtures only for bathing. This was home to members of the Reynolds family until 1942. Of the several hundred farm and ranch houses that were acquired by the United States Government when Fort Hood was established, this house alone survives. As a symbol of the vanished communities of the area, it links the past and present. Remodeled in 1954, it has been the residence of numerous general officers stationed at Fort Hood. (1976) SUPPLEMENTAL PLATE: After 100 years of honorable service to the Reynolds family, Killeen and Fort Hood, the Reynolds House was demolished April 14, 2015.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mother Neff State Park — 20 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 22 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.

More markers nearby

• Santa Fe Depot — 1.1 mi
• Oveta Culp Hobby and the Women's Army Corps — 1.1 mi
• Second Armored Division, U. S. Army — 1.6 mi
• City of Killeen — 1.7 mi