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Amassing considerable capital as a planter and merchant in Jefferson, Noble Allan Birge came to Sherman in 1874 to join in the Blackland Prairie cotton boom. After purchasing ten acres northwest of downtown in the Fairview Addition, he built a house that was destroyed by the great Sherman tornado of 1896. His second house, attributed to local Scottish-born architect, Tulloch, is a collision of Queen Anne and classical features in its flamboyant roof of steep pitches and ornamented gables and a monumental front portico with Ionic columns. Birge established in Sherman one of the largest cotton brokerage firms in the South, as well as founding other cotton-related industries. His extended family participated in these businesses and built houses in the surrounding neighborhood. Eight of these houses remain, including two Prairie Style houses in 1910 designed by Tulloch at 710 and 622 W. Birge Street, and the classical house (1900) at 607 W. Birge, built for Birge’s daughter, Sophie. The Craftsman house (1898) at 703 W. Birge, built for another of Birge’s daughters, is also attributed to Tulloch.