W. D. McFarlin Building
Plano, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This building was purchased by W.D. McFarlin in 1885 and is considered one of the oldest brick buildings in Plano. A fire in 1895 destroyed the original building and McFarlin rebuilt the building out of brick. One year later, Schoolfield Drugs moved into the building. E.A. Carpenter bought the business and operated a drug store here until 1908 when it was sold to Allen Brothers Drug Store. The building remained in the McFarlin family for 65 years until it was sold in 1950. This building served as a grocery store, a dry goods store, drug store and other businesses.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
W.D. McFarlin purchased this Plano building in 1885, and after an 1895 fire destroyed the original he rebuilt it in brick—making it one of the oldest brick structures in town. Over the decades it housed a succession of enterprises, most notably a drugstore run in turn by Schoolfield, E.A. Carpenter, and the Allen Brothers, along with grocery and dry-goods businesses. The building stayed in the McFarlin family for 65 years until its sale in 1950.
Why it matters
Sturdy brick commercial blocks like this one anchored the main streets of railroad-era Texas towns and still testify to the durable optimism of small-town American commerce.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The W. D. McFarlin Building takes you back to Plano in the Reconstruction and Gilded Age era, when a Texas town's ambitions could be read straight off its main street. In the 1880s, a brick commercial building was a statement — a bet that the town was here to stay and that its business district deserved something more permanent than wood.
This was the railroad age in North Texas, when small towns were growing into real commercial centers with drugstores, dry goods merchants, and grocers lined up along a business block. A building on that block wasn't just a storefront; it was a piece of infrastructure that generations of businesses would pass through.
Fire was the constant threat that shaped these downtowns. Wooden buildings burned, and towns learned the hard way to rebuild in brick. That lesson is written into this very structure's history, and into the look of countless American main streets that turned to brick after a blaze taught them why.
People & events
W. D. McFarlin bought this building in 1885, and it's considered one of the oldest brick buildings in Plano — a distinction that already tells you he was building for the long haul. Then, in 1895, fire destroyed the original structure. Rather than walk away, McFarlin rebuilt it in brick, and that decision is why the building still stands to be marked today.
Just a year later, in 1896, Schoolfield Drugs moved in, beginning the building's long run as a home for the town druggist. E.A. Carpenter bought the business and ran a drug store here until 1908, when it passed to the Allen Brothers Drug Store. A single storefront, three successive druggists — that's the kind of continuity that made a building a fixture of daily life, the place people came for remedies, advice, and a familiar face behind the counter.
The building stayed in the McFarlin family for 65 years before it was sold in 1950, and over those decades it sheltered a whole parade of enterprises — grocery store, dry goods store, drug store, and others. One address, one family's stewardship, and an ever-changing cast of businesses passing through its brick walls.
Its place in the American story
Sturdy brick commercial blocks like this one were the anchors of main streets all across railroad-era America. They gave a downtown its backbone: durable, fire-resistant, and built to outlast whatever particular business happened to occupy them in any given decade.
The building's history is a lesson in adaptive reuse long before anyone used the phrase. Drugstore, grocery, dry goods — the tenants changed with the times, but the building simply absorbed each new use and carried on. That flexibility is precisely why so many of these old blocks survive; they were general-purpose containers for whatever commerce a town needed next.
And the rebuilding-in-brick chapter connects Plano to a near-universal American story. Town after town suffered a downtown fire and answered it with brick, trading the quick, cheap construction of the frontier for something meant to endure. McFarlin's choice in 1895 put a small piece of that national resolve on Plano's main street.
If you visit
Look up. On a downtown Plano block, seek out the older brick façade among its neighbors and picture it as one of the town's earliest brick buildings — the survivor of an 1895 fire, rebuilt to last. The brick you're looking at represents a deliberate choice to build something permanent after flames took the first version.
As you stand before it, run the marker's roll call of tenants through your mind: the druggists Schoolfield, Carpenter, and the Allen Brothers behind the counter; the grocery and dry goods concerns; the everyday commerce of a growing Texas town flowing through one doorway across the decades. A building like this is a stage that a whole community's business life crossed.
It's a rewarding stop on any walk through historic downtown Plano, where old commercial buildings reward a slower pace and an upward glance. Don't look for a single grand story here — look for the quiet endurance of a working building that served its town, changed with it, and is still standing to tell you so.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · W.D. McFarlin
- · E.A. Carpenter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mathews General Store
Plano, TX
After an 1895 fire, Plano rebuilt its Mechanic Street in brick, and S. J. and Nancy Mathews relocated their store into one of these new buildings in 1906. Mathews Department Store sold dry goods, clothing, and millinery handmade by Nancy and her daughters until 1947, after which the building carried on as a department store and other businesses. Its detailed brick façade, transom windows, and ironwork from Sherman Iron Works survive as one of Plano's few nineteenth-century stores in continuous commercial use.
Fred Schimelpfenig Building
Plano, TX
Built in 1884 by the Sanger Brothers, this one-story brick mercantile became Plano's most prosperous dry-goods store under Frederick Schimelpfenig, who also served as mayor from 1902 to 1908. After the great fire of 1895 it passed to J.H. Gulledge, who ran a dry-goods business until 1918, and later to Westway Sportswear in 1946 and a string of shops and tea rooms. The building still retains its original size and form on Plano's historic commercial row.
Plano National Bank/I.O.O.F. Lodge Building
Plano, TX
After fire destroyed the building they shared in 1895, the Plano National Bank and the Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) Lodge rebuilt together in 1896, joining commerce and fraternal life under one roof. In 1936 architect Abe Cain gave the structure a striking art deco makeover—complete with Czechoslovakian black Carrara glass—a look a 1980s restoration later reclaimed. The building charts a small Texas town's evolution from Gilded Age main street to modern era.
Saigling House
Plano, TX
After the Houston & Texas Central Railroad opened Plano to agricultural markets in the 1870s, C.F. and Celestine Saigling moved from Houston in 1881 to seize new business opportunities. C.F. built a lumber, planing, and milling enterprise and served on the city council and first school board, with a local elementary school later named in his honor. In 1918 Celestine built this two-story brick Craftsman house — among the first brick-veneer homes in Plano — designed by the noted Dallas firm of Lang and Witchell, and it went on to house several of the town's leading citizens.