Aston-Landers Building
Granbury, Hood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Erected 1893 as a saloon by Andy Aston and George Landers; of native stone, with patented iron front. Here occurred a 1901 duel that badly injured a non-participating horseman on the square. Crusader Carrie Nation visited Granbury in 1905, and in 1906 voters outlawed liquor. Afterward Aston had his buggy and harness shop in the building, employing fine leather craftsmen Charlie Maxwell and Wilkes McCuen. Later the building housed shops of many kinds.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Andy Aston and George Landers erected this native-stone building with a patented iron front as a saloon in 1893, and it saw its share of frontier drama, including a 1901 duel that wounded a bystander on the square. When temperance crusader Carrie Nation visited Granbury in 1905, sentiment was shifting, and voters outlawed liquor the next year. Aston then turned the space into a buggy and harness shop staffed by skilled leather craftsmen, and it later held many other businesses.
Why it matters
The building's swing from saloon to harness shop mirrors the temperance movement's reshaping of small-town American life at the turn of the century.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Andy Aston
- · George Landers
- · Carrie Nation
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John L. and Annie Upshaw Cleveland House
Cleburne, TX
John L. Cleveland, a Georgia-born farmer and businessman, married Annie Hamilton Upshaw in 1884, and the couple settled in Cleburne, where they built this Queen Anne home with Eastlake details in 1892. John ran a cottonseed oil mill and hardware store and sold some of the town's first automobiles, while Annie led civic life—heading the local Red Cross canteen during World War I and helping found the city's parent-teacher associations and council of mothers. The house passed through their family before later owners preserved its ornate fishscale shingles and sunburst trim.
The Fair
Granbury, TX
Andy Aston built this Granbury square building in 1888 as a harness and saddle-making shop, and decorative ironwork was added during a 1906 remodeling while George Landers held a share of the business. After the harness trade moved out around 1908, a parade of retailers filled the space—Joe Kerr's grocery, several dry-goods firms, and the store that gave the building its name, "The Fair." Among the neighboring merchants was one nicknamed "Blue-Front Riley" for the painted facade of his earlier shop.
Glenn Brothers Building
Granbury, TX
Attorney and town builder James Farr raised this store in 1885, and by 1888 it belonged to the four Glenn brothers, civic leaders who ran the family grocery here. After an 1891 fire swept the block, contractors rebuilt with heavy iron-clad timbers supporting a handsome Victorian brick front—an example of the sturdy commercial architecture that lined a booming Texas courthouse square.
Hardware and Tin Shop
Granbury, TX
As Granbury's courthouse square filled in during the 1870s and 1880s, wood gave way to stone quarried nearby. Built in 1882 and rebuilt after an 1891 fire, this building passed from investor to saloonkeepers to, by 1895, a hardware and tin shop run by a former county clerk. Upstairs worked Lon Morris, a lawyer remembered as a benefactor of the college that bears his name.