Mildred Inn & Guest House
Built in 1872.
One of the first stone residences built in Mason not even a decade after the Civil War, the Mildred Inn & Guest House is a demonstration of early settlers' earnest attempts to make a proper town out of this rugged frontier outpost. Though owned by several men of consequence in the late 19th century, it was one 20th century woman—the home's longest resident—who made this house the center of social life in Mason.
The Gooch Homestead
Built by Ben Gooch in 1872, this property's several historic structures, including a smokehouse and a cistern, are a pretty picture of life on a 19th century homestead.
Many homes in Mason are built in the mid-Victorian style with the area's distinctive red sandstone, a byproduct of the Llano Uplift, a geological formation on which Mason is founded. Like the Mildred Inn, many stone houses you'll see around town were built between 1870 and 1900, when local wealth finally afforded such sturdy construction material. Before then, the earliest residences in Mason were either log cabins or picket houses (made with simple frame and plank wood), typical in frontier homesteads when shelters needed to be constructed quickly and cheaply.
Mason's First Sandstone Homes
Gooch's home was among the first four stone residences built in Mason, sometime around 1870. The use of stone was a sure sign of Mason's burgeoning status in the Hill Country—before then, homes in the area were made cheap and hardly permanent. In the shadow of German settlements like Fredericksburg and New Braunfels, Mason suffered from a reputation for renegades and outlaws, hold-ups on the stagecoach line, and Comanche attacks. To think Mason could ever be a proper frontier town took vision, but vision, Benjamin F. Gooch had in spades.
Gooch was instrumental in the first steps Mason took towards consolidation: the establishment of the first public school, a church, and so on.
The Union of Two Grand Families
The marriage of Cora Bridges and John Wilburn (J.W.) White would have been the talk of the town in 1891. Cora was the 24-year-old daughter of one of Mason's earliest families—as Cora's mother once put it, "they beat the town to Mason"—who eventually built the town's first hotel. Source. As for J.W., he had been the new bachelor in town, arriving to Mason in 1889 on horseback, driving his saddle horses along with his chuck wagon. Formerly of Gonzales, he'd begun his career running horses on open range land with his father and brother, but later joined his Uncle George to form a business trailing cattle to northern markets for sale.
There is no mystery, then, why J.W. found himself in Mason. By 1870, Mason County was where the central Texas cattle trails joined up with The Great Western Cattle Trail. Pegleg Crossing, just north of town, was where drovers forded the San Saba River on their way up to the Kansas railhead. Source. J.W. was likely introduced as an eligible bachelor to the young ladies of Mason at a social gathering in one of the historic homes you see around town today.
The White Legacy in Mason
As the undisputed power couple of this frontier town, Cora and J.W. took their obligations seriously. Cora was an active philanthropist who helped revitalize the local Presbyterian Church, while J. W. went on to become the president of Mason National Bank, organize the Mason Businessmen's Club, and own the largest ranch in Mason County, Mill Creek Ranch.
Nearly a Century
Cora Jane Bridges called this place home until she died in 1951. By 1940, her faithful daughter, Mildred (who was most likely born in this very house) had moved back into the family home after her divorce from her first husband, Seth Baze, and would reside here until age 90, when she was moved into a care home just a year before she died in 1992.
A Party at Mildred’s
Only in recent years was the house renovated into an inn and named by the current owners for the White's middle daughter, Loula Mildred (White) Baze Grant, or Mildred. In interviews conducted with Mildred's granddaughter and daughter-in-law, one thing was made clear: Mildred loved to host a party and did so well into her 80s.
In 1917, teenage Mildred hosted a dinner party here for her circle of friends, among whom was her future husband, Seth Baze. When her father, J. W. White, opened a new warehouse in 1938, Mildred managed to secure Lawrence Welk for a performance during the celebration's street dance. In 1957, she hosted the reception for the world premiere of "Old Yeller," written by local author Fred Gipson, which debuted at the Odeon Theater that year.
Not understanding just how prolific her grandmother was when it came to party planning, Susy Baze Walker explained, "I grew up thinking everyone’s grandmother lived in a beautiful old house and loved to host parties.”