Joseph Redmond Rice (1805-1866) and his wife, Willie Masters Rice (1809-1881), natives of Tennessee and Kentucky, built a one-room log cabin on this site in 1828. Rice's brothers and his father-in-law, Jacob Masters, probably helped with the building. The men cut logs in the woods, and Willie Rice drove a team that snaked them to the clearing for the house raising. Menaced by hostile Indians, the Rices fled to Louisiana, but returned in the 1830s. Over ensuing years, they enlarged the cabin and increased their family to eleven children. Their dwelling became known in the Republic of Texas as a place to lodge or take meals on the San Antonio Road, between the towns of Nacogdoches and Crockett. After Joseph and Willie Rice died, descendants lived in the log house until 1919, when a grandson shifted it some 300 feet and built a new frame house on the original site. The historic house was then used to store grain and shelter farm implements and the family automobile.
The Rice Homesite was commemorated in 1936 by the Texas Centennial Commission, and in 1973 the old log house was given to the State. Relocated in Tejas Mission Park (16 mi. NE.), it has been restored and is on exhibition as a relic of frontier days.
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