Frederick Law Olmstead, who traveled through Texas in 1853-4, wrote of his reaction upon seeing such a pleasant detail: “I never in my life, except perhaps in awakening from a dream, met with such a sudden and complete transfer of associations. Instead of loose-boarded or hewn-log walls with crevices stuffed with rags or daubed with mortar, which we have been accustomed to see during the last month, or staving in a door, where we have found any to open; instead, even, of four bare, cheerless sides of whitewashed plaster, which we have found twice or thrice only in a more aristocratic American residence, we were — in short, we were in Germany.” Photograph: Institute of Texan Cultures

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