Patton-Buchanan Building
Crockett, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Crockett merchant William Monroe Patton (1855-1915) built this commercial structure about 1903. It was the fourth of six buildings he constructed on what became known as the Patton Block and is the only one that retains its original Mesker Bros. pressed metal storefront. In 1926 Wade Hampton Buchanan (1894-1978), a Crockett mechanic and businessman, bought the building and leased it until 1976 to a variety of local businesses. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
At the turn of the 20th century, Crockett was a growing East Texas county seat where merchants raised whole blocks of brick storefronts. Around 1903 local businessman William Monroe Patton added this building to a row of six he erected, and it alone still wears its original Mesker Bros. pressed-metal facade—a mail-order architectural flourish popular across small-town America. A generation later mechanic Wade Buchanan bought it and leased its street-level space to a parade of local enterprises for half a century.
Why it matters
Mesker storefronts like this one document how mass-produced ironwork let ordinary Main Street merchants dress their buildings in big-city style, shaping the look of thousands of American downtowns.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Crockett is one of the oldest towns in Texas. It was founded in the 1830s and named for the frontiersman Davy Crockett, and it has long been the seat of Houston County in the East Texas piney woods. By the start of the twentieth century it was a busy market town where farmers from the surrounding countryside came to trade, shop, and do business at the courthouse.
That era was a building boom for small-town downtowns across the country. Railroads had tied rural places into national markets, and merchants who were doing well wanted buildings that looked it. Wooden stores gave way to brick blocks, and a respectable facade became a way to advertise.
Most small-town merchants, though, couldn't hire a big-city architect or pay stone carvers. The industrial age offered another option. Factories could turn out decorative building fronts, sell them through catalogs, and ship them by rail almost anywhere. That was the world this building came from, and its storefront is a direct product of it.
People & events
William Monroe Patton was a Crockett merchant, and he clearly believed in the town. Around 1903 he put up this commercial building. It was the fourth of six he eventually built along a stretch that became known as the Patton Block. Building six structures is more than running a store. It is a bet on the future of downtown, made by someone who expected Crockett to keep growing.
What makes this building special is its front. It is the only one of Patton's buildings that still has its original pressed-metal storefront from Mesker Bros. The Mesker name belonged to a family of ironworks businesses in the Midwest. The St. Louis firm, Mesker Brothers, sold ornamental building fronts by catalog to merchants across the country. A storekeeper could pick a design, send the measurements, and get stamped metal cornices, pilasters, and trim shipped by rail, ready to install.
In 1926 the building passed to Wade Hampton Buchanan, a Crockett mechanic and businessman. He did not run a single store here. He rented the space out, and for fifty years, until 1976, a series of local businesses came and went behind the Mesker front. In 1982 the building was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, carrying both men's names.
Its place in the American story
Mail-order storefronts like this one help explain why so many American main streets look alike. From the late 1800s into the early 1900s, companies like Mesker sold thousands of pressed and cast metal facades to small towns across the country, especially in the Midwest, South, and West. Ornament that once needed skilled stonework could now come out of a catalog.
That made a kind of big-city style available to ordinary merchants. A shop in an East Texas county seat could have a cornice and decorative pilasters that looked up to date, at a price a local businessman could pay. Historians and preservationists now study these facades as evidence of how industrial production shaped everyday buildings, not only the grand ones.
Many Mesker fronts have been lost, covered over during later remodels, or allowed to rust away. A surviving original storefront, still in place on the building it was bought for, is a real document of that period. Its long rental history also shows how downtown buildings actually worked, passing from one tenant to the next as the town's needs changed.
If you visit
Look up. The main thing to see here is the storefront, and the details are the whole point. Look for the stamped patterns, the repeated decorative elements, and the crisp lines made by pressing sheet metal into shape. Once you know what a Mesker front looks like, you may start noticing them on main streets across the country.
Then step back and look at the rest of the block. This was one of six buildings Patton put up, and seeing it next to its neighbors helps you picture the commercial row a turn-of-the-century merchant built piece by piece. It is a good lesson in how a small downtown grew.
Crockett makes a pleasant stop on an East Texas drive, with a historic courthouse square and a long history for a Texas town. Give yourself time to walk around downtown. Old commercial buildings like this one reward slow, close looking more than a quick glance from the car.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · William Monroe Patton
- · Wade Hampton Buchanan
Themes & tags
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