MR. Richard Arvin Overton, Americas Oldest Veteran Passed Last Year. His Home to become Historic Landmark *UPDATE*

Americas Oldest citizen and veteran most notably known for his claims of cigars and whiskey being his secret to longevity passed away at 112 years old after a battle with pneumonia last year. Almost a year later his home is to become a historic landmark.

According to KUT the home of Richard Overton, who was believed to be America’s oldest World War II veteran before he died last year, will now be harder to alter or tear down after Austin City Council members deemed it historic Thursday.

“He was a physical link to the history of our nation and our city, and now that he’s gone his house is our physical link to him,” said Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, who oversees the district where Overton’s house sits.

Overton died Dec. 27 at the age of 112 after being hospitalized for pneumonia. Born in Bastrop County in 1906, Overton joined the U.S. Army in 1940 as part of an all-black engineer aviation battalion, serving in Pearl Harbor and in the Pacific theater at Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

“Uncle Sam called me in, and I went there and I had to do it,” he told KUT in 2015. Roughly 2,000 people attended a funeral service for Overton in January, before he was buried with full military honors at the Texas State Cemetery.

According to city documents, Overton bought the property on Hamilton Avenue in 1948 and built a one-story home for himself and his second wife. He worked for a furniture company and for the State Treasury Department before retiring in the 1970s.

Richard Arvin Overton (May 11, 1906 – December 27, 2018) was an American super-centenarian who at age 112 years, 230 days was the oldest verified surviving U.S. World War II veteran and oldest living man in the United States. He served in the United States Army. In 2013, he was honored by President Barack Obama.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] He resided in Austin, Texas, until his death.

Overton enlisted into the U.S. military on September 3, 1940 at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.^[7]

He served in the South Pacific from 1940 through 1945, including stops in Hawaii, Guam, Palau and Iwo Jima. He left the U.S. Army in October 1945 as a technician fifth grade.^[8]

Overton worked at local furniture stores before taking a position with the Texas Department of the Treasury (now part of the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts) in Austin. He was married twice but never had children.

Overton gained media attention during the 2013 Memorial Day weekend when he told Fox News he would spend his Memorial Day “smoking cigars and drinking whiskey-stiffened coffee.”

FoxNews reports America’s oldest veteran, Richard Overton, who served in the Army during World War II and credited God, whiskey and cigars for his remarkable longevity, died Thursday in Texas at the age of 112, reports say.

He had been hospitalized for the last week with pneumonia, his family said.

Shirley Overton, whose husband was Richard’s cousin, said the vet died Thursday evening at a rehab facility in Austin.

Overton, who was also thought to be the oldest living American, was born in 1906 in Bastrop County, just outside Austin, Texas.

Overton was in his 30s when he volunteered for the Army, and was at Pearl Harbor just after the Japanese surprise attack in 1941.

The WWII veteran served in the all-black 1887th Engineer Aviation Battalion from 1942 to 1945, a period that included stops in Angaur, Palau; Peleliu, Micronesia; and Iwo Jima, Japan.

On Veterans Day in 2013, as FOX 7 Austin reported, former President Barack Obama honored Overton in front of thousands in the nation’s capital. “His service on the battlefield was not always matched by the respect that he deserved at home. But this veteran held his head high,” Obama said.

Overton, in later years, could often be seen on the porch of his home, which he built in East Austin in 1945.

“He’s like a gift to Austin that keeps giving,” Overton’s friend Steve Wiener said last summer. “He’s a crackerjack. When people sense his humor and playfulness, it just lightens everyone’s step.”

His favorite pastime was smoking his 12 daily cigars on his front porch…