Aston-Landers Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, the Aston-Landers Building in Granbury, Hood County, this is one of those structures that seems to have attracted trouble the way a porch light attracts moths, and it starts before the trouble even arrives. Back in 1893, Andy Aston and George Landers put this place up as a saloon.

Native stone walls, patented iron front; built to last, built to impress, built to pour whiskey. And for a good while, that's exactly what it did. Then came 1901.

There was a duel. Right there on the square. Now, the two fellows doing the dueling, we don't know their names from the record, but here's the detail that'll stick with you: the man who got badly injured wasn't one of them.

It was a non-participating horseman. Just a man on a horse, minding his own business on the square, and the duel reached out and found him anyway. That's the kind of story a building holds in its walls.

But the real reckoning was still coming. 1905: Carrie Nation herself rolled into Granbury. The crusader. The woman who made saloon owners sweat through their vests.

She visited, she spoke her piece, and whether it was her doing or just the mood of the times, the voters of Granbury made their decision in 1906: liquor was outlawed. Just like that, the saloon era was over. Andy Aston, to his credit, didn't walk away from the building he'd helped raise.

He set up a buggy and harness shop right there inside those same stone walls, and he brought in fine leather craftsmen (Charlie Maxwell and Wilkes McCuen) men who knew what they were doing with their hands. The building kept going after that, housing shops of many kinds over the years. One address, native stone, a patented iron front, and more history than most blocks ever see.

What the marker says

Erected 1893 as a saloon by Andy Aston and George Landers; of native stone, with patented iron front. Here occurred a 1901 duel that badly injured a non-participating horseman on the square. Crusader Carrie Nation visited Granbury in 1905, and in 1906 voters outlawed liquor. Afterward Aston had his buggy and harness shop in the building, employing fine leather craftsmen Charlie Maxwell and Wilkes McCuen. Later the building housed shops of many kinds.