I thought mesquite trees were damn near everywhere.
My grandfather had a 125 acre farm in Hill County, rolling hills with not much else. He was constantly fighting and uprooting mesquite trees. Guess what got cut up for firewood? It pops but burns hot.
He had an old US Army wood stove like this one.
Attached FileThe body was steel and rusted out, but his brother-in-law owned a welding fabrication shop, and they rolled a new body for it and they fitted the cast iron parts to it.
My dad (72) is the oldest of nine kids, he said it got so cold one year, they brought all the mattresses into the main room of the house with that stove and they slept there. My grandfather kept it stoked red hot. Probably would have been in the 1950's. Dad couldn't remember if they had indoor plumbing yet or not, so no pipes to freeze, but it was a long ways from Leave it to Beaver and Sandlot baseball.
If you go back to the 1880's I bet you'd find the same. Nobody lived in a big house unless you were rich and you went outside to poop. So there was less to heat and less to take care of. You were probably more worried about getting water for your cattle.