Most common was the "single-pen" house, consisting of one log room usually about sixteen feet square, with side gables, a rear shed, and an exterior chimney centered in one gable wall. In Medina County, particularly in the settlements dating to Castro's colony, a highly unusual form of log construction occurred, distinguished by a lack of chinks and by "double notching." This type was perhaps introduced from Alsace or Switzerland by Castro colonists, but it reveals greater affinity to the Hispanic notched-log construction found in certain highland areas of Mexico and New Mexico.Ī relatively small number of floor plans characterized Texas log dwellings. Square notching was most common in East Texas, V notching in the Cross Timbers and Hill Country, saddle notching in pine and cedar woods, and dovetailing where upper Southerners, especially Tennesseans, settled. The names suggest the shape of the notch. Notching types varied in Texas, but most common were half-dovetailing, square notching, the V notch, and the saddle type. In dwellings, the chinks were stopped up and plastered or covered with boards to produce a tight wall. Logs, regardless of shape, did not touch except at the notched corners, but instead were placed so as to leave chinks between. In piney areas, split half-logs were often employed, with the smooth surface placed on the interior side of the wall. The more typical dwelling was built of logs planked with ax and adze, presenting flattened interior and exterior surfaces. The crudest were built of logs left in the round, sometimes with the bark intact, a method common on outbuildings and the earliest cabins. Texas log buildings consisted of timbers shaped in one of three major ways. The Great Depression years witnessed a brief revival of log carpentry in the East Texas piney woods. After about 1880 log construction declined and began to acquire a relict status. Southern Anglos and their slaves, together with immigrant Indian groups such as the Cherokees, introduced log construction into Texas beginning about 1815, and it prevailed as the almost exclusive building method among these settlers for a generation or two after arrival.
Closely linked to the American frontier, this kind of construction spread from the colonial Delaware valley, where it had evolved from Finnish, Swedish, and German prototypes. Buildings constructed of horizontally laid timbers notched together at the corners once prevailed in the eastern half of Texas.
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