WACO COUNTRY CLUB, CAMERON PARK CLUBHOUSE AND STURGIS ROAD

What we know as the “Cameron Park Clubhouse” was built in 1902 as a private country club and was known as “Waco Country Club”. The Cameron Family added it to Cameron Park in 1920. In what is now “Anniversary Park” there once stood a beautiful home that belonged to the Sturgis family. Lindsey Hollow Road was the only road that led to the Country Club, and the city needed a more direct road. Mr. Sturgis donated access to the city for what became “Sturgis Road”. Then, he sold his land to the city a few years later.
All of the photos in the post are from the book “William Cameron Park: A Centennial History:1910-2010” by Mark E. Firmin. Additional photos are in the comments.

Virginia Plunkett does a beautiful job of telling us the rest of the story:

“Sturgis Road is Not Named for Francis?”
From the book “Around Again” by Virginia Plunkett

Seeing the street sign, STURGIS ROAD, and knowing the many things Francis Sturgis does for Waco, I thought for sure Sturgis Road in Cameron Park was named for her.

But I was close! It seems that in the 1900s, James H. and Lula Carroll Sturgis lived in a house on property near the Cameron Park Clubhouse, and it was in this house that James H. Sturgis, Jr., Carrol Sturgis, and Anna Sturgis were born.

Lindsey Hollow was the only road leading to the clubhouse, and that was to the back of it. The city needed a road that led straight up to the front of the clubhouse, and asked James Sturgis to sell the right-of-way.

The kindly gentleman gave the right-of-way, accepting no money, and in turn the city officials named it STURGIS ROAD. Later, when Cameron Park was being developed, the city officials went back to Sturgis with an offer to buy the rest of his property and his house.

Two years later, Sturgis did sell his house and land to the city and moved his family to a Victorian style home he had bought at 1316 Washington. James N. Harris had built the home in 1887 for his daughter Lola and her husband, Edward H. Hardin.

During the next several years, James Sturgis. Jr. had moved to Lexington, Missouri, Anna had married Harry Jeanes, and Carrol had married Frances Burnett of Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Carroll and Frances continued to live in the lovely red brick, black wrought-iron trim house on Washington.

Driving down Washington, when you saw Carroll planting yellow daffodils, you knew it must be Spring. Those beautiful yellow flowers up the walkway and around the front of house were a treat for the passers-by for many years, until Carroll and Frances sold the house to a group of attorneys and bought a charming little “one-story” house in Castle Heights. And, if driving by, I bet you’ll know the house by the lovely seasonal flowers Carroll has planted up the front walk and in the garden spots of the house.

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George Randall Scott is a fifth-generation Wacoan who currently lives in Bryan-College Station, Texas. He is the administrator of a number Waco history groups and pages on Facebook, including “Waco, Texas History in Pictures.”