The statement about Kentucky being a “fly-over state” has always irritated me, with the casual presumption in the tone of the speaker indicating that nothing worthwhile exists to see any closer than an airplane’s flight path. But I’ve been guilty of “drive past” excursions on the Interstate Highway System for years. A quick road trip in June left me with about an hour to dawdle, and my foray into the history of Huntington, West Virginia, began (of course) with a historic, faded beauty of a house.
Perusing listings for National Register of Historic Places districts in Huntington (because when you are me, that is how you dive into exploring a place) led me to an interesting older nomination, the “9th Street West Historic District” from 1980. The small district was once part of the town of St. Cloud. This was an intriguing nugget, so I followed it down the rabbit hole.
The facade of the Surbough-Ferguson House in Huntington, West Virginia.
Prior to 1910, many small towns once existed adjacent to Huntington, but were swallowed up by annexation as the state’s second largest city grew. The city of St. Cloud, founded in 1874 between present day 5th Street West and 11th Street West, was one of the communities swallowed by its hungry larger neighbor. Prior to that, however, some prosperous St. Cloud businessmen bought parcels of land and hired carpenters to construct some lovely late 19th century houses – all just a streetcar ride away from the hustle and bustle of Huntington.
The houses in this small historic district were “built to house middle and upper middle-class families who maintained interests in the wood-finishing, brick manufacturing, and picture framing businesses in what is now West Huntington.”*
North on this map is a little skewed, but you can see St. Cloud on the right side (west) of the city of Huntington in this 1877 map (big blue arrow!). Image from the West Virginia State Archives Map Collection https://westvirginiaarchiveshistory.zenfolio.com/p974981478/h87D64535#h87d64535
The Surbough-Ferguson House is located in the 9th Street West Historic District, and while this 2.5-story frame house dates from around 1893, I don’t know the original owner or builder. (A chain of title would reveal that information, but that is hard to do from hundreds of miles away and on my computer…) But the facade, though faded and in need of some attention, boasts many features and elements that any homeowner anxious to be “on trend” in the 1890s could include on their wish list.
The house itself is not all that large, with the entry door at one side of the facade (likely allowing for a side passage plan, one in which the stairs and hallway run on one side of the house, with the rooms to the other side). A canted bay on the first floor facade has three windows; all of the facade openings are sheltered by a hipped roof porch with graceful arches at either end, a basketweave frieze, brackets at the cornice, and turned and chamfered porch posts.
A view of the side elevation and facade.
As is typical, most of the ornamentation (readily available from locals mill/lumberyards) is lavished upon the facade of the house, and despite the careworn appearance of the house now, I think you can still appreciate the visual delight these features bring to the house. On the second story, below the fanciful attic turret (the windows of that space have sadly been painted over), is a recessed balcony. The adjacent window sports an overhanging hood, with drop finials and a pediment. The attic gable above this fanciful treatment is clad in fishscale shingles, and features a bracketed cornice, and a gable lit by two small arched windows framed by pilasters.
Section from the 1931 Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing the house.
The front porch is echoed on the side elevation by a small side porch that has unfortunately been enclosed (and another addition added to its roof). The rear porch visible on the 1931 Sanborn is also now enclosed. Numerous outbuildings cluster at the back of the parcel, including a garage.
Circa 1980 photograph of the house from the NRHP nomination. Rodney S. Collins, photographer.
Although I would love to know the person responsible for the building of this house, its longtime owners were the Surbough family, who took up residence by at least 1909 (according to Huntington city directories). Caius Edward Surbough, a carpenter, and his wife, Alice, married in 1901. In 1920, they owned and lived in this house with their two sons, Eldon and Alan. Caius died in 1929, but Alice continued to live there until her death in 1947. By 1951, the house had been sold, and likely at some point in the mid-20th century was bought by the Ferguson family. (Ferguson Brothers Plumbing is housed in a concrete block building on the west side of the historic house.)
A detail of the details on the facade.
The Surbough-Feguson House and its neighbor on the corner (once the home of Mayor Floyd S. Chapman) were the highest valued houses ($7,000) in the 1930 census. The neighborhood has undergone many changes since Caius and Alice raised their family here – I passed numerous empty lots on my drive through the west side of Huntington. But this house, like so many historic buildings, still possesses the ability to transport the viewer – to allow a view beyond the material changes, into the past – when its façade bore signs of love, and care, and pride.
*Rodney Collins, 9th Street West Historic District, Section 7, page 1.
