Pioneer Farms
Costume House - 1879
Built in 1994 as a prop for a television movie, Lantern In Her Hand, this replica building serves as a costuming and check-in center for Pioneer Farms volunteers.
In both construction and design, it resembles many woodframe structures that existed in small communities in Texas in the late 1800s. They housed workshops, stores, meeting halls, schools, sometimes even homes.
Its location just outside the village square likely indicated it housed a secondary or support function, since primary businesses usually located on the square. Its weathered, unpainted condition also is typical of such buildings from that era. They were designed to be functional, but not fancy, reflecting the penurious nature of frontier Texans.
Relatively small in scale and size, buildings such as this were often moved from one town to another as communities relocated, either rolled along on logs (if the distance was just a few blocks) or lifted onto a wagon frame pulled by a team or horses (if the distance was farther). In much the same way, this building in 2005 was relocated to this from another spot on Pioneer Farms, continuing that tradition.
Source: Pioneer Farms Archives.