Kincaid Hotel
Uvalde, Uvalde County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This four-story hotel building was constructed in 1927 by the family of William Davis "Billy" Kincaid (b. 1854) in memory of his life as a prominent Uvalde cattleman, businessman, and civic leader. The Kincaid Hotel became a popular place for business meetings, banquets, and social gatherings. Ranchers and cattle traders made the Kincaid lobby their meeting place. The hotel has served such noted guests as Texas Governors, Congressional leaders, President Lyndon Johnson, and movie personalities, including Ronald Reagan, later President of the United States. 1981
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Raised in 1927 in memory of cattleman and civic leader William Davis "Billy" Kincaid, this four-story hotel became the crossroads of Uvalde's ranching economy, its lobby a standing meeting place for ranchers and cattle traders. Over the decades it hosted Texas governors, congressional leaders, and celebrities, including President Lyndon Johnson — a Uvalde-country figure — and future president Ronald Reagan.
Why it matters
A grand small-town hotel like the Kincaid shows how ranching wealth built the social and business institutions of the Texas cattle country in the early twentieth century.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Davis Kincaid
- · Lyndon Johnson
- · Ronald Reagan
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Rice Hotel and Saddlery
Uvalde, TX
Built in 1909–10, this two-story building has long anchored Uvalde's commercial life, its ground floor first holding an ice house and meat market while the upper floor served as a dance hall, private club and grand jury room. In 1913 saddle maker Prentice Carrington Rice, working in Uvalde since 1883, moved his saddlery and harness business to the first floor, and the second floor was later divided into rooms that operated as The Rice Hotel into the 1940s. Its layered uses trace the everyday economy of a South Texas ranching town.
L. Schwartz Company
Uvalde, TX
Louis Schwartz, a native of Alsace-Lorraine, immigrated to the United States in 1866 and settled in Uvalde, at first peddling dry goods and medicines from a wagon across the surrounding country. In 1878 he opened a mercantile store near Main and Camp streets, moving it to a new building around 1900. After his death in 1924 his sons carried the business on until it finally closed in 1960 — more than eight decades as a fixture of Uvalde commerce.
The Uvalde "Leader-News"
Uvalde, TX
The Uvalde Leader-News grew out of a tangle of frontier papers dating to 1879, consolidated by English immigrant Harry P. Hornby, who launched his Leader within weeks of arriving in 1898. Over the following century the paper championed local sons who rose to national office—John Nance Garner, who became Vice President, and Dolph Briscoe, who became governor of Texas. Under two generations of Hornby editors it stayed rooted in booster politics for enterprise, education, and conservation.
Schwartz House
Uvalde, TX
Built in 1927 for local merchant and city alderman Lee Schwartz and his wife Agnes, this modest colonial revival home was designed by San Antonio architect Will A. Noonan and raised on land once owned by Mrs. Schwartz's mother, over the site of an earlier house. Its pedimented entry, sidelit door, and grouped multi-light windows are hallmarks of the restrained revival styling popular in prosperous small Texas towns of the era. It was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1997.