The Bates-Sheppard House was reconstructed on this site in the fall of 1886 by Francis Walter Bates using lumber salvaged from the ruins of the Indianola home of Morgan steamship Captain Henry Shepard after a hurricane destroyed Indianola in August 1886. The house was occupied by Bates, his wife Elizabeth Sheppard Bates, her sister Mrs. Jennie Sheppard Luther, and a brother Henry D. Sheppard. Bates, a hardware merchant in Cuero from 1884 to 1930, was a Mason, a Knight-Templar, and a city Alderman from 1887 to 1914 who was greatly interested in the volunteer fire department. H. D. Sheppard, for years the Cuero agent for the Southern Pacific Railroad, was a local business leader. After 1904 Mrs. Luther was mistress of the house, and another Sheppard brother, Joseph, with his wife, children, and grandchildren also frequented it as part of the extended family. Altered and enlarged in 1925, this Victorian house remained in the Bates-Sheppard family until 1968.