Rice Hotel and Saddlery
Uvalde, Uvalde County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This building, constructed in 1909-10, has long been a part of Uvalde's commercial development. The first floor originally was used for ice storage and a meat market. While the upper story served as a dance hall, private club, and Grand Jury room. In 1913, Prentice Carrington Rice (1848-1934), a Uvalde saddle maker since 1883, purchased the building and moved his saddlery and harness business to the first floor. The second floor later was partitioned into rental units and operated as The Rice Hotel. Later owners continued the hotel business until the 1940s. 1984
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
The building shows how a single Main Street structure could evolve with a small town's needs — from ice house to saddlery to hotel — in the years when Texas ranching towns came of age.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Uvalde in the early 1900s was a South Texas ranching town coming into its own. Cattle, sheep and goats had shaped the region's economy for decades, and the railroad had tied towns like this to wider markets. Main streets filled with sturdy commercial buildings that served ranch families coming to town for supplies, business and entertainment.
The Progressive Era brought steady modernization, even to small towns. Ice made meat storage possible before home refrigerators, and a meat market with ice storage met a practical need in the South Texas heat. Upstairs rooms in commercial buildings often did double duty as community spaces for dances, club meetings and even public business.
The horse still mattered in these years, even as the automobile arrived. In ranch country especially, saddles and harness were everyday tools, and a skilled saddle maker was an essential tradesman.
People & events
The building went up in 1909–10, and its first uses show how much a single structure could hold. On the ground floor were ice storage and a meat market. Upstairs, the space served as a dance hall, a private club and a grand jury room, so on different nights it might have hosted music and dancing, private gatherings, or the serious work of the justice system.
In 1913 Prentice Carrington Rice bought the building. Born in 1848, Rice had been making saddles in Uvalde since 1883, which means he had served the town's ranchers for thirty years before moving his saddlery and harness business onto the first floor. A saddle maker's shop in ranch country was a place of craft, with leather, tools and customers who depended on gear that would hold up to hard work.
The upstairs changed as well. The second floor was later divided into rental rooms and run as The Rice Hotel, which gave travelers and workers a place to stay in the heart of town. Rice lived until 1934, and later owners kept the hotel going until the 1940s, carrying the building through decades of change in Uvalde and beyond.
Its place in the American story
The Rice Hotel and Saddlery is a textbook example of how small-town American commerce actually worked. Buildings were rarely built for one purpose forever. They changed with the needs of the community, from ice house to saddle shop, from dance hall to hotel rooms. Reading a building's changing uses is like reading a town's economic history.
Prentice Rice's long career represents a whole class of craftsmen whose skills supported the American ranching economy. Before factory-made goods and motor vehicles took over, a local saddle and harness maker was as important to a ranch town as a blacksmith or a general store.
The hotel's run into the 1940s also reflects a national shift. As car travel and roadside motels spread, many downtown hotels in small towns closed or turned to other uses. Main Street buildings like this one are reminders of how Americans lived, worked and traveled before the highway age remade the landscape.
If you visit
Look at the building as a stack of stories. Picture the ground floor filled with the chill of ice storage and later with the smell of leather from the saddlery, and imagine the upstairs echoing with dance music long before it was divided into hotel rooms.
Notice how the building fits into Uvalde's commercial streetscape. Structures from this era were built to last and to serve a working ranch town, and they still show that practical, sturdy character.
Uvalde makes a good stop on a drive through the South Texas Hill Country's southern edge and ranch lands. Pair this marker with others in town to build a picture of how a frontier ranching community grew into a modern county seat.
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
- · Prentice Carrington Rice
Themes & tags
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