Governor Henry McDaniel

The McDaniel-Tichenor House was designed and built for Governor Henry D. McDaniel in 1887.

Governor McDaniel forever changed the history of the state of Georgia. Most notably, he established the Georgia School of Technology (later the Georgia Institute of Technology) and served on the board of commissions that planned construction on the state capital building. Governor McDaniel was also an influential contributor not only to the development of Georgia Tech, but also Mercer University and the University of Georgia.

Governor McDaniel graduated from Mercer in 1856 and was admitted to the bar in 1857 and moved to Monroe to practice law the same year. In 1861 he served as a delegate to the state’s secession convention and in 1863, as a major in the Confederate army, he was wounded and spent the rest of the war in a Northern prison. Upon returning to Monroe in 1865 he married Hester Caroline Felker. They had two children, a son Sanders and a daughter Gipsy. In 1872 McDaniel was elected to the state house and two years later elected to the Senate. He was elected as the full term Governor in 1884. Governor McDaniel retired to Monroe in 1886 where he hired William Winstead Thomas of Athens to design and build his home. Governor McDaniel died in 1926.

McDaniel’s daughter Gipsy married Edgar S. Tichenor in 1896. They had two children Henry and Hester. Gipsy bought her brother's share of the house in 1930 following her parent’s death and they hired their son-in-law, Francis Boddie Warfield, to remodel the house. Edgar Tichenor died in 1933, followed by Gipsy in 1939.

Henry McDaniel Tichenor bought his sister Hester’s share of the property and moved in with his wife Emily Burney Tichenor after World War II. Emily continued to live in the house after Henry’s death in 1965. In 1980 the house was listed on the National Register of Historical Places. Emily Tichenor died in 1990 leaving the estate to the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.