The building began as Canadian's First Baptist Church, built in 1910 by families who sacrificed to pay for it, with brick walls, tall white columns and stained glass. The Church of Christ worshipped in it from 1955 for twenty years. After two years empty it was slated to come down in 1977, and that year Dr. Malouf Abraham Jr., a physician who had grown up in Canadian in a family that came from Lebanon, and his wife Therese bought it for $15,000 to make it their home.
People thought they were crazy, and Therese put a sign out front saying "We think you're crazy, too." The couple did the design themselves, turned 8,000 square feet of church into a house and raised three sons in it, and for more than thirty years filled it with paintings, sculpture and other works. Therese served much of the 1980s as the town's mayor. Rather than sell the collection, they gave the house, its art and its gardens to the town, moved up the street, and the Citadelle opened as a public museum in 2009.
Visitors see the permanent collection in the Mansion and traveling shows in a newer gallery, which has brought in exhibitions of Rembrandt, Cassatt, Chagall, Degas, Ansel Adams and the Texas Impressionists. The museum runs art programs for tens of thousands of schoolchildren from small Panhandle districts, and it anchors the cultural district the state designated in Canadian in 2018. The gardens and grounds are open for strolling and picnics.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour