Moving home draws crowd on Thursday
By SHANNON CRABTREE scrabtree@leader-news.com

L-N Photo by Shannon Crabtree Street Traffic Controller Anthony Fowler of Fowler House Movers of Ganado directs his crew in the relocation of this 1926 home from Church Street in El Campo to West Jackson near Ricebird Drive In as students from St. Philip Catholic School gather to watch. The Thursday move took most of the morning. The home was purchased by Clint and Rickie Babcock of El Campo.

A 1926 house has the right of way when traveling down neighborhood streets - so long as it fits under the power lines.

Crews from Fowler House Moving of Ganado had the former Nordeen family house up on beams early Thursday morning, moving it from a Church Street lot not far from St. Philip Catholic Church to a site near Ricebird Drive In on West Jackson.

The house had to be moved from church property or face destruction.

The church reportedly needs the lot for another use.

Crews from AEP and other agencies were out in force lifting lines Thursday morning, allowing the home safe passage along the residential roadways.

As it began to roll, students from St. Philip Catholic Church lined up in front of the church and in the football field to watch the not-normally mobile home make its way.

Clint and Rickie Babcock of El Campo purchased the old home. They and their two children - Marley, age 3, and 1-year-old Austin - will soon move into it.

"They liked the historic value of it," Patty Babcock said. The mother of Clint Babcock, she sold the lot where the home now rests, after arriving around noon Thursday.

"It (the house) was literally a godsend. It came from the church," she said.

The Babcock family hopes to be living in the home at some point next month.

"It's a nice older house and they were just going to tear it down," Rickie Babcock said. Both she and her husband had attended St. Philip and were familiar with the home, which had been occupied previously by the Nordeen and Hamman families.