The Harris Centennial
Harris --The past 100 Years
First House
Page 19
Regarded as the oldest house in the Harris community was a small two-story structure which stood a block east and a block east, and the second house north of the town's main square. Formerly the property of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Harris, it now belongs to Douglas Forbes. The old dwelling dates back to 1872, when it was built by Ben Webster, who erected it on his homestead claim one and one-third miles west of the present location of Harris. There was no village here at the time, in fact the Webster house was the only home in the vicinity. It was occupied by the Websters until 1904, when they built a new farm house, selling their original habitation to Charles Grover, who moved the house to a new location on their Harris plot, purchased from the railroad.
Relocated near the new Grovers house, the old Webster farm house served for a short time as a granary, then was sold to Dominic Zwank, a bachelor. Zwand moved the building a block north and across the street, where the Darrell Stroufe dwelling now stands. Zwank and his sister, Mrs. George Blend and husband, lived there a short time in 1914, while their new home was being built. It was soon afterward that the Harrises purchased it and relocated it on their lot. At that location it was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Isom Harris, parents of Ralph Harris, until their deaths. Thereafter thee Ralph Harrises, then well along in years, several times occupied it themselves. A long procession of renters also occupied it during the past 40 years, the last of which was the Verlic Woelfe family who in the early fall of 1934, nearly lost all of their personal property in a fire which so reined the structure that it was never used again as a dwelling.
For the next twenty years or so the little old house was used as a garage and storage place for garden tools, then torn down to make room for the trailer-house home of Eldon Harris, a grandson of the Ralph Harrises, and his wife. A new garage stands about where the old house stood and is used by the Lee Spiegel family who rent the Douglas Forbes place.
- Written by Mrs. Dan Watters -1964