From downtown, take a short drive to Kilgore’s oldest standing home, known today as the Dean Keener Crim House. Built in 1876, located at 200 S Kilgore, just two years after the railroad arrived, this home has witnessed every chapter of Kilgore’s story, from a quiet farming settlement to a booming oil town.
The original builder, S. G. Dean, purchased one acre near the new railroad station for just $45 and constructed a modest two room house of pine and oak with a covered porch. In 1881, he sold it to L. J. and Allie Keener, who expanded it into a large two story, four bedroom home. Each room included its own fireplace, a rare luxury for the time.
In 1902, Wiley Newton Crim and his wife Eudora purchased the property and added a screened porch plus a roofed back veranda. They also enclosed an old fashioned well that still works today.
Then came the oil boom. When oil was discovered in 1931, the Crim family found seven oil wells drilled right in their own yard, a vivid example of how quickly Kilgore transformed. The family lived here until 1999, preserving not only the house but the story of more than a century of daily life. With its mix of frontier simplicity and Victorian charm, the Dean Keener Crim House remains a true time capsule of East Texas endurance.