Preservation Award Established in Honor of Cum Concilio Club
Cum Concilio Club members Peggy Wright (right) and Ster Dubberly (left) present a $200 donation to Carolyn Spears of the Stone Fort Museum at Stephen F. Austin State University, for the establishment of a preservation award in the club’s honor. The new Cum Concilio Club Preservation Award will be presented biannually to recognize an individual who has made significant contributions to the preservation of eastern Texas history and Nacogdoches County.
A women’s club in Nacogdoches, the Cum Concilio Club, was at the forefront of the effort to preserve the Y’Barbo’s stone house but, in the end, was able to save only the building’s stones. The last of February 1902, the stone house was torn down and the stones hauled to an empty lot where they sat for five years. Possibly the first preservation effort in Texas, the Cum Concilio Club’s battle to save the stone house served to warn others of the dangers of ‘progress’ in Texas’ rapidly changing cultural landscape.