Sam Bell Maxey House State Historic Site

Samuel Bell Maxey was born in Tompkinsville, Kentucky, on March 30, 1825, graduated from West Point in 1846 and served in the war with Mexico. In 1857 he and his father moved their families to Paris to practice law. In the Civil War he raised the Ninth Texas Infantry for the Confederacy and rose to major general.

After the war he needed a presidential pardon to practice law or hold office. After repeated failed attempts, his West Point classmate Ulysses S. Grant recommended one, and his citizenship rights were restored. In December 1868 he moved into the house on Church Street with his wife Marilda and their adopted daughter Dora, then 12; it was paid for with legal fees and styled after an Italian villa, with elongated hooded windows, a portico and Victorian carving. He served two terms in the U.S. Senate from 1874, known as "the Beaver of the Senate." He died in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in August 1895 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

In 1908 the house passed to his great-nephew Sam Bell Maxey Long and Long's wife Lala, who remodeled it in 1911. The site now interprets both the Maxey and Long families, from Reconstruction to the start of World War I, with restored interiors, original furnishings, clothing and letters. Tours start at the top of each hour.