In 1855, 30-year-olds Washington and Mary Hill embarked on a significant building project on nearly 18 acres of land northwest of the City of Austin. They engaged the most accomplished master builder in Austin at the time – Abner Cook, who was also building the Governor’s Mansion – to construct a fine Greek Revival home and outbuildings including a slave dwelling, today the last intact and accessible structure of its type left in the city.
The Hills as it turned out had overextended their ambition. They took on two loans and sold five enslaved people, and even then could not afford their home so sold on completion. The site then became a boarding house and, later, a rental property for Lieutenant Governor Fletcher Stockdale and for the Federal Army under George Custer.
The site got its current name from two of the families who called the limestone rubble mansion their home. The Neill family purchased the house in 1876. Andrew and his wife Jennie outfitted their new home with impressive walnut furniture and made their mark in Austin and Texas social and political circles. They were known for their lavish parties as well as the library Andrew, as an attorney, filled with books. The Cochrans moved into the home in 1893 when Thomas Cochran was appointed a Texas District Judge. Thus began over six decades of residency; four generations of Cochrans called the house home through World War I, the Roaring 20s, World War II, and through the 1950s.
While the main house is a tribute to the Greek Revival style with its massive overhanging porch ceiling supported by 26-foot tall wooden columns, the Slave Quarters was built to reflect its use as lodging for the enslaved and later free people who worked on the property. It had a dirt floor, ladder access to the second floor, and bare stone walls. A recent restoration of the Slave Quarters has returned it to its original context and new interpretive panels highlight Texas’s 500 years of history of enslavement.
The Neill-Cochran House Museum is the sole museum in Austin dedicated to the city’s history from its founding into the 20th century.