Dr. Theodore Koester Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one passing it along. Somewhere in Comal County stands a house that has been a lot of things to a lot of people, and it all started back in 1859. That's when somebody put together cedar, oak, and limestone into what would become the Dr.

Theodore Koester Home. And right away, this place was built with a few tricks up its sleeve. A dumb waiter.

Speaking tubes on each floor. This was not a plain house. This was a house that meant to work for a living.

Now, Theodore Koester himself, born in 1817 and gone by 1877, was the kind of man who did not believe in doing just one thing. The marker calls him versatile, and that word is doing some heavy lifting. He served as physician to the German Immigration Company.

He ran a doctor's office out of this house. He ran a pharmacy out of this house. And if you thought that was enough, well, he also ran a bakery.

Under the same cedar and oak and limestone roof. Doctor, pharmacist, baker. The speaking tubes carried his voice from floor to floor, and you have to wonder who was listening on the other end.

A patient? A customer waiting on a remedy? Somebody hoping the bread was ready?

That's the thing about Theodore Koester's house. It never really had just one answer to the question of what it was. And in 1859, out on the Texas frontier, maybe that was exactly the point.

What the marker says

Constructed 1859 of cedar, oak, and limestone, a dumb waiter, and speaking tubes on each floor. The versatile Koester (1817-1877) was physician to German Immigration Co. In this house he ran doctor's offices, pharamacy, and bakery. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark --1970