DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it — and this one's got some layers worth peeling back. You're looking at the E. M.
Kohl Building in Grayson County, and the man behind it lived a life that'd make for good company around any campfire. Ernst Martin Kohl, born in 1857, died in 1935 — a former German Navy captain who, at some point in his seafaring life, apparently decided that Denison, Texas was exactly where he needed to be. He arrived in 1885, and by 1893 he had put up the first floor of this very structure to house a grocery store and a saloon.
Now that's a man who understood the full range of human needs. Then, somewhere between 1909 and 1911, Kohl went back and stacked three more floors right on top of it — turning a commercial building into a family residence. His family lived up there, above the store, above the saloon, in a building he had raised with his own ambition.
Time moved on, as it tends to do in Texas, and by the 1930s the building had reinvented itself as the Traveler's Hotel, drawing business from the nearby railroad district. Railroads had a way of pulling the world toward them, and this building was right there to catch whoever came through. In 1968, Mr. and Mrs.
Bud Tucker purchased it, and then in 1975 it passed again — to Dr. and Mrs. D. H.
Brandt. Now here's where the story gets a little warm around the edges: the Brandts didn't just buy the building, they handed it to their sons — Bill, Bob, and Charles — who restored it. A German Navy captain builds it.
Generations pass through it. And eventually three brothers bring it back. That old building has outlasted every chapter written inside it, and it's still standing to prove it.
What the marker says
Ernst Martin Kohl (1857-1935), former German Navy captain who came to Denison in 1885, built the first floor of this structure in 1893 to house a grocery store and saloon. He added the top three floors in 1909-11 as his family's residence. In the 1930s, this building became the Traveler's Hotel, drawing business from the nearby railroad district. Purchased in 1968 by Mr. and Mrs. Bud Tucker, it was sold in 1975 to Dr. and Mrs. D. H. Brandt and restored by their sons, Bill, Bob, and Charles. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1975