C. R. Rich Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, Charles Rufus Rich was born in 1857, and if you're doing the arithmetic on when he finally left this world, the marker will tell you that was 1945. That is a long stretch of Texas living, friend.

And the man did not spend it idle. Rich was a native of this state, born and bred, and by the early nineteen hundreds he had opened his business right there in Lovelady, Houston County. He had a plan, and by 1906 that plan was standing in brick and mortar.

He completed this building that year, and he built it to do double duty. Ground floor, a general mercantile. Second floor, home.

Work downstairs, sleep upstairs. Practical. Efficient.

Texas. But here is where C. R.

Rich did something a little extra, something that says this man had an eye for more than just commerce. He dressed that building in Italianate detailing. Now look up at those upper story windows sometime, because flanking them you will find paired Corinthian colonettes.

Colonettes, plural, on a general store in Lovelady. That is a man who wanted his building to mean something. And it did mean something, for a good long while.

Ownership of the C. R. Rich Building stayed in the Rich family for nearly sixty years.

Charles Rufus Rich finished that building in 1906, and the family he built it for held onto it, kept it theirs, kept his name on it. That is not just a mercantile. That is a legacy with Corinthian columns on it.

What the marker says

Charles Rufus Rich (1857-1945) completed this building in 1906 as a combination ground floor general mercantile and second floor residence. A native of Texas, Rich had opened his business in Lovelady in the early 1900s. The commercial structure exhibits Italianate detailing and features paired corinthian colonettes beside the upper story windows. Ownership of the building remained in the Rich family for nearly 60 years.