Guthrie Building
Kerrville, Kerr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In continuous use since 1887, this building is one of the oldest in Kerr County. It is named for newspaper publisher Robert Guthrie, who was born in Scotland where generations of his family ran the same newspaper. Robert established the Kerrville Eye in May 1884 as the successor to the News that his father John began printing in 1882. John also published papers in Bandera and Boerne. In May 1887, Robert Guthrie bought this property for a new office for his newspaper and other commercial interests. Contractor W.B. Davies finished the stone building by the fall for the sum of $2,600. The Guthrie Hotel operated on the second floor. In November 1888, Guthrie sold his building and newspaper business to Ed Smallwood, who changed the name of the Kerrville Paper. Smallwood was elected on of Kerrville's first aldermen in 1889, and he ran the Paper until August 1899, when Jesse Grinstead bought the business and changed the name to the Mountain Sun. Grinstead was Kerrville's mayor from 1902 to 1904 and was later elected to the state legislature. He continued publishing the newspaper at this location until 1907. Later tenants included Kerrville's City Hall on the second floor (1910-1937), and the Wheelus Photographic Company on the first floor (1921-1960). Cleveland and Gertrude Wheelus built a projecting addition with two glass display windows in 1926, but it was removed in the 1980s when the building was restored to its original appearance. The Guthrie Building is a two-story Italianate style commercial structure. Walls are 15-inch thick limestone from a quarry just east of Kerrville. Ashlar stones are laid in irregular courses, and prominent architectural features include belt courses, smooth dressed window lintels and sills, quoins, and a two-story full-length gallery porch with decorative cornice and dentils. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2007
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Finished in 1887 for the sum of $2,600, this thick-walled limestone building is among the oldest surviving structures in Kerr County. It was built by Robert Guthrie, a Scottish-born publisher who carried on a family newspaper tradition, housing his Kerrville Eye and a hotel upstairs. Over the following decades it passed through a succession of editors and civic leaders—Ed Smallwood, Jesse Grinstead—and later served as Kerrville's City Hall and a photographic studio, its Italianate stonework surviving into a careful restoration.
Why it matters
As a working home for frontier journalism and town government under one roof, the Guthrie Building shows how a single Main Street building could anchor the civic and commercial life of a growing Hill Country town.
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Related people
- · Robert Guthrie
- · Ed Smallwood
- · Jesse Grinstead
Themes & tags
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