Sondra Hernandez Staff writer July 18, 2024

On Saturday mornings when Carolyn Meadows Walker opens the front door of the Heritage Museum of Montgomery County to start her docent shift for the day, she is literally at home in the space.  

Since 1986, the county’s local Heritage Museum has been housed in the 1924 Grogan-Cochran Home in Conroe’s Candy Cane Park. It’s also the home where Walker, now 80, was brought as a newborn after her birth at the Conroe hospital in 1944. 

She lived with her grandmother in the house as a teen and for 10 years it was her home with her own family before the family donated the house for use as a museum. 

“I just love it. I go around (in volunteer work) flooded with memories,” she said. 

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Grogan-Cochran home’s original owner

The Grogan-Cochran Home was built in 1924 by James G. Grogan Sr., who was prominent in the lumber industry at that time, according to historical marker text on the home. 

The house was constructed with wooden shiplap walls and floors from local pine produced at the Grogan-Cochran Lumber Co., sawmill. The house was originally located near downtown Conroe at 615 North Thompson Street.

In 1934, Grogan sold the house to his oldest sister, Laura Grogan Cochran and her husband T.M. Cochran for their family. Over the years, it became known as the “Cochran home” as several generations of Cochrans lived there and many Cochran family events like holiday meals, weddings and parties took place there. 

Laura and T.M. were Walker’s great-grandparents. Her grandparents Virgil C. Cochran and his wife, Lucille, later lived in the home. 

A grandmother’s influence 

When Walker was born, she and her mother came back to the Cochran home to recuperate before returning to Falfurrias where her father’s job was at the time.

“The family came to visit me (a newborn) there. It was enough to make mother homesick (for Conroe) and she told my father ‘get us home,'” she said. Her family returned to Conroe and they lived there while looking for a home in Conroe.

Later as a teen, she lived with her widowed grandmother who had a major impact on her youth. Walker’s graduation party took place there and while she always wanted her wedding reception there, it was not to be as her grandmother passed prior to her wedding day. 

From roughly 1975 to 1985, Walker lived there with husband and young son. 

‘Seeing memories everywhere’ 

She feels fortunate that each museum director has allowed her to continue to volunteer there and share stories of her family home with visitors. 

The home’s interior has a long hall down the center with rooms on either side. As a girl staying with her grandmother, the hall was never heated. She remembers running from the rooms down the hall to the kitchen quickly to stay warm. She also has fond memories of her son riding his little tricycle up and down the hall as a boy. 

What is now Gallery I was a bedroom and as a girl it would bother Walker that she could hear people who were trespassing at the community pool at night as she was trying to sleep.

It was also her job to decorate the Christmas tree which went in the front corner of what is now Gallery II. 

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A keeper of history 

As volunteers were looking for a spot to place a new heritage museum for the county in the mid-1980s, Walker decided to donate the house for the cause. In 1985, it was moved from North Thompson Street to Candy Cane Park a few miles away. 

“The house looked it and felt it (like a museum),” Walker said of her reason for donating the home. 

In a 2015 article in The Courier, JoCarol Oberman, past president of the Heritage Museum Board, recalls the moving of the house took place in the fall of 1985 and took the better part of a day.

The home was split in two to be moved and the highest part of the roof was taken off.

Oberman remembered it was quite a spectacle that day in town as roads had to be closed and power lines lifted.

Even though Walker agreed to the house being moved, she said it was “heartbreaking” seeing her beloved home cut in two halves. 

Seeing the house being moved she questioned “What have I done?” The relocated home opened as the museum in early 1986. In 2015, the Strake-Gray Home and small roughneck houses were moved to Candy Cane Park and became a part of the complex. 

Celebrating 100 years

Museum staff members are celebrating the centennial anniversary of the house this year. Joe Kolb, who is an artist and museum volunteer, has created a line of keepsake items available at the museum’s gift shop commemorating the milestone. 

In addition to displaying Montgomery County historical items, the museum also hosts programs throughout the year. Next up is a children’s rock painting program on Aug. 3. 

Programs geared for adults will return in September. Current temporary exhibits at the museum feature the history of the Conroe Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club of Conroe. 

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