Professor William J. Hancock, headmaster of the new Bastrop Academy, which opened in 1851, built the home to serve as a residence and a boarding house. In 1857, the Academy was converted into the Bastrop Military Institute (BMI) under a new headmaster, Col. Robert TP Allen, a West Point graduate. Col. Allen purchased the house for $5,000 and continued to board students there. A frequent visitor was Governor Sam Houston, whose sons were BMI cadets. In 1876, John Preston Fowler and his wife, Maud, purchased the home. Fowler was mayor of Bastrop in 1874, a county attorney and a State Senator.
