Chambers County Alabama Photos......Thomas J. Lett Home
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Contributed by Don L. Clark Jul 2005
Thomas J. Lett Home (3 Photos)
Buffalo, AL
Built ca. 1913
(Click on Photo for a Closer View)
Thomas J. Lett (1847-1921) and wife Louisa B. Abernathy Lett (1849-1917) are
pictured above as they stand in the front yard of their new home constructed at Buffalo, AL, in 1913. The house was
located less than 1/2 mile south of Buffalo on the west side of the LaFayette-Roanoke Hwy. (now US Hwy. 431).
The Letts moved to Buffalo from western Chambers County near Rippville.
(Click on Photo for a Closer View)
This view of the Lett house shows cotton growing almost to the front door!
This house with a multi-gable pyramidal roof was typical of houses built around the turn of the century by successful cotton farmers.
A central hall with two rooms on each side and a kitchen wing on the left side made up the floor plan of the Lett home.
Four fireplaces were used to heat the house. All rooms were sealed with tight fitting 1x4 tongue and grooved pine lumber.
Ample porches on the front and rear provided pleasant outdoor sitting areas. The body of the house was painted white and the
trim was dark green.
(Click on Photo for a Closer View)
In this rare photograph showing the rear exterior, the Lett house is still under construction.
At the right end of the back porch a well was dug for convenience to the kitchen. Carpenters had not yet built curbing around
it when photographed. It is possible that another house once existed on this site as the log building shown at the left side of the
picture is quite old.
The Lett house stood for only about 50 years before being moved from its original site to another one several hundred feet in
a northwesterly direction. A modern brick ranch home was then built on the original site. The old house was soon neglected;
the roof decayed allowing water inside and the house silently rotted away.
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