Brandt Badger House
Marble Falls, Burnet County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Brandt Badger (1839-1920), a veteran of the Confederate Army, moved to Burnet from Gonzales in 1885, and in 1887, helped found Marble Falls. He built this house in 1888 of granite from nearby "Granite Mountain". The stones were cut from quarry rubble remaining after the "shaping" of the blocks for the State Capitol building. The structure has 8 rooms and 6 fireplaces. Badger lived in the house until his death, and it was owned by the family until 1943. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1974
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Brandt Badger, a Confederate veteran who came to Burnet County in 1885, helped found Marble Falls two years later and in 1888 built this substantial home. Its walls were cut from quarry rubble left over after shaping the great blocks of pink granite that built the Texas State Capitol at nearby Granite Mountain. The eight-room, six-fireplace house stayed in the Badger family until 1943.
Why it matters
The house ties a small Hill Country town to one of Texas's signature building projects, showing how the granite boom that raised the Capitol also shaped the homes and fortunes of the people who lived beside the quarry.
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Related people
- · Brandt Badger
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Michel's Drug Store
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Ernst Gustav Michel, a German immigrant, and his wife Lillie Agnes opened a drugstore on this site in 1891. After fire destroyed the first store in 1905, Michel raised a three-story building with the drugstore and soda fountain below, a 300-seat opera house on the second floor, and the family's quarters above — only for it to burn again in the great block fire of 1927. All four of the Michel children who reached adulthood became pharmacists, and the family has kept a drugstore here since 1891.
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Granite Mountain
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A few miles from this marker rises Granite Mountain, the source of the distinctive pink granite quarried to build the Texas State Capitol. Constructed from 1885 to 1888, that capitol was second in size only to the United States Capitol. The stone was paid for in a remarkable barter — three million acres of state land traded for the building's construction.
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