Est. 1853 · Texas Frontier History · Living History Museum · Fort Worth Heritage · Plantation Era Architecture
The idea behind Log Cabin Village was preservation through relocation. As North Texas developed through the 20th century and historic structures faced demolition or decay, the city of Fort Worth began collecting authenticated log buildings and reassembling them on a landscaped campus along the Trinity River. The result is a collection of structures spanning the 1843-1880s era, each relocated from its original site but maintained with period furnishings and costumed interpretation.
The Foster Cabin stands apart from the others. Built in 1853 near Port Sullivan, Texas — a settlement on the Little River in Milam County — it is one of the few surviving plantation-era log homes from mid-19th-century Texas and one of the largest structures of its type from that period. The cabin was owned by Harry Foster, and the documentary record of its occupants includes at least two deaths within the family.
The museum campus operates under the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History's umbrella and is open Tuesday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The grounds include multiple cabins representing different periods and functions of frontier domestic life: a one-room schoolhouse, a gristmill, a corn cabin, and several dwellings. Costumed interpreters demonstrate period crafts and skills during open hours.
Log Cabin Village has been a Fort Worth cultural institution since the mid-20th century, maintained by the city's Parks and Recreation and cultural facilities programs. The site sits within the cultural district that also includes the Kimbell Art Museum, the Modern Art Museum, and the Amon Carter Museum.
Sources
- https://www.logcabinvillage.org/
- https://tcu360.com/2010/10/26/log-cabin-village-home-109-s-best-known-ghosts/
- https://fortworthyhistory.com/2021/10/28/haunting-fort-worth-tales/
- https://www.loghome.com/articles/5-haunted-log-cabins/
Phantom smellsCold spotsPhantom footsteps
Harry Foster's second wife, Jane Holt, died in the cabin years after his first wife died in childbirth there. According to the accounts that have circulated in Fort Worth for decades, it is Holt who has remained.
The primary evidence cited is olfactory: heavy lilac perfume appearing suddenly in the Foster Cabin and dissipating just as quickly, with no source plant or product in the building. Visitors and staff have described the scent as distinct and recognizable. The original Shadowlands submission described it as 'the perfume of a settler that was killed there' — though the documented history describes natural deaths rather than violence.
Cold spots appear in the lower floor of the cabin, following no consistent pattern. Footsteps emanate from the attic above the second floor — the upper portion of the structure that sits above the public visiting area. The second floor itself generated enough reported incidents that management decided to close it. Several visitors ran down the narrow staircase from that level, reportedly frightened by something they didn't articulate clearly.
The cabin now houses the museum's staff offices and gift shop on the accessible level. The upper portion remains off-limits to the public.
The Shadowlands submission also mentions a figure resembling a man with a broken neck, screaming and inducing the feeling of being chased. This level of specificity — the broken neck, the screaming — was not corroborated in independent sources covering Log Cabin Village. The lilac perfume, cold spots, and footstep accounts appear consistently across multiple independent sources; the more dramatic figure does not.
Notable Entities
Jane Holt
