Lost, Hidden, and Saved Homes

Governor Thomas Mitchell Campbell Home

Corner of Methvin and Green

Date of construction: 1879
Architectural Style: Eastlake
Razed: 1949

Thomas Mitchell Campbell, a native of Rusk, Texas, moved to Longview about 1874 to work in the Gregg County Clerk’s office and study law at night. Earlier he studied law at Trinity University, but a lack of finances led him to withdraw after only a year. He was admitted to the state bar and began practicing law in Longview in 1878. In the same year, he married Fannie Irene Bruner of Shreveport.

Their first home, the "Honeymoon Home," was a small frame cottage, now located on Second Street, and it is a recorded Texas landmark (1965).

The family later built the elegant Victorian Eastlake home on Methvin Street, and their five children were born there.

Upon the urging of his old friend, Governor James Hogg, publisher of Longview’s first newspaper, he ran for governor and was elected to two terms, 1907-1911. The second native Texan to become governor of Texas, he was noted for regulation of utilities, restrictions on lobbying, a pure food law, an insurance law, strength-ening antitrust laws and helping reform prison system.

Later appointed to a receivership position with the International and Great Northern Railroad, he moved to Palestine where he became the railroad’s general manager and kept a private law practice until his death in 1923.

The home was demolished in 1949 and is the current site of the Bramlette Building.