Hardware and Tin Shop
Granbury, Hood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A cabin-dotted Woodland in 1870, this square soon had buildings of stone quarried less than a mile away. Investor John D. Baker built this structure in 1882 and in 1890 sold it to saloonkeepers Aston and Landers. Extensive repairs were made in 1891, after a fire in this and neighbor buildings. By 1895, ex-county clerk J.R. Morris had a hardware and tin shop here. Lon Morris, a widely-known lawyer and college benefactor, had his offices on the second floor.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
Ordinary commercial blocks like this are the connective tissue of a Texas county-seat square, tracing how a frontier settlement matured into a permanent town.
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Related people
- · Lon Morris
- · J.R. Morris
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Glenn Brothers Building
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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.
First National Bank
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The first section of this hand-hewn native limestone building went up in 1883, the same year D.C. Cogdell and John H. Traylor opened a private bank in the young town of Granbury. The institution earned a national bank charter in 1887 and later expanded into an adjoining unit, its Victorian storefront reflecting the confidence of a growing Hood County seat. A roster of long-serving officers, some staying decades, steered the bank across the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Aston-Landers Building
Granbury, TX
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.
The Fair
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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.