Among the several rooming houses in New Sutherland Springs was the Busby House, which had an interesting origin. Sarah Perdum "Perdie" Busby came with her mother, Margaret H. Gibson Busby, to New Sutherland Springs from Goliad in the summer of 1910. Margaret was apparently so crippled that she had to be carried from the train to a waiting carriage, but after several weeks of soaking in black sulfur water she could walk as much as one hundred yards. Impressed, she had her husband, Robert Brown Busby, join her and Sarah, and together they decided to construct a rooming house with ten rooms for rent. Margaret died in September 1910, but the Busby House began taking visitors in early 1911. Sarah in 1915 briefly tried to sell the operation, but she and her father apparently managed the place until his death in 1918, when he was buried in Goliad alongside his wife.

 

 Perdie Busby had taken work as a teacher by 1940 and lived in San Antonio, but when she was hospitalized in 1947 at Floresville, where she died, she declared her home address was Sutherland Springs. Apparently after Perdie left, her sister Lola moved into the Busby House with her husband, Chauncey S. Southern.

 

"The Busby House was demolished after county commissioners converted abandoned town lots into acreage in 1925, 1937, and 1941.  In New Sutherland Springs, some buildings had already fallen victim to either fires or vandals. After renovation of Farm to Market Road (FM) 539 during the late 1950s and early 1960s led state officials to acquire and sell more lots owned by long-absent landlords. 

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