DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, every good building has a story, and every good story has a few plot twists — this one's got at least three. We're talkin' about the Estep-Burleson Building, right here in San Saba County, Texas.
Pull up a chair, because this old limestone box has been through more lives than a courthouse cat. It all starts with a man named Elijah Estep — born 1828 in Sangamon County, Illinois, which is about as far from the Texas Hill Country as a man can get and still be on the same continent. He married Abigail Montgomery, born 1826, and the two of them had settled in the community of Cherokee right around the time San Saba County was founded.
Elijah would go on to become the county's second tax assessor-collector, which, depending on your opinion of tax collectors, is either a fine distinction or a cautionary tale. Then came the kind of heartbreak that reshapes a life. Abigail died in 1868, and Elijah was left standing with eleven children — ages one to nineteen — and a county that was barely older than some of those kids.
Now that is a man with his hands full. He didn't stay down long. In 1869, Elijah married Jane Williams, born a Burden, daughter of Nathaniel Burden — born 1798 — and Sarah Burden.
And it's that Burden name that's going to come back around and cause some mischief later, so keep it in mind. In the early 1870s, Estep got to work. He built this two-story building facing the courthouse, and he did it right — rough-cut hard limestone, quarried right there locally.
Each floor is a single room, twenty by sixteen feet, with hewn beam ceiling joists and pine floor planking. Simple, solid, frontier-grade construction. A newer ten-foot square room attached to the west end came along later, but the bones of the place are pure early Texas.
The building became a residence, and Estep ran a mercantile store on the east end of the same lot. His family held onto it for nearly two decades. Then, in September of 1890, a prominent central Texas attorney by the name of Leigh Burleson bought the property and set up his law office inside those limestone walls.
That's where the second name on the marker comes from — the Estep-Burleson Building. After Burleson, a man named E. E.
Risien and his heirs owned the property for more than fifty years. Fifty years of occasional use as an annex, and — truth be told — a fair amount of sitting empty. Now, here's where the mischief with that Burden name catches up to us.
Somewhere along the way, someone started calling this place the Burden Hotel and attributed it to Nathaniel Burden, going all the way back to 1857. Sounds plausible enough, right? The Burden family was connected to Elijah Estep, after all.
But the records tell a different story. Nathaniel Burden's property was on the north side of the square — not here. And Nathaniel Burden died in 1870, the very year before his son-in-law Elijah Estep bought this particular lot for seventy-five dollars.
A dead man cannot build a hotel on land his son-in-law hasn't purchased yet. History is funny like that — a name attaches to a building, everybody repeats it, and before long a myth is sitting in the county records like it owns the place. It took actual research to set it straight.
Now, the building's roughest chapter wasn't in the 1800s — it was the 1990s, when the old limestone structure faced deconstruction. And here's where the story turns on a dime. Local students stepped up and helped persuade the William Fritz family out of Fredericksburg to donate the property to the community.
Think about that. Young people, arguing for the life of an old building, and winning. The structure was then restored to its earliest known appearance, drawn from a 1911 photograph — including a gabled wooden front porch and exterior stairs, looking very much like Elijah Estep might recognize it if he came riding up to the courthouse square.
Born in Illinois, widowed with eleven children, twice married, tax collector, merchant — Elijah Estep built something out of local limestone in the early 1870s that is still standing. History fashioned from wood and stone, as the marker puts it. And sometimes it takes a classroom full of kids to make sure it stays that way.
What the marker says
Elijah Estep (1828-1901), San Saba County’s second tax assessor-collector, was born in Sangamon County, Illinois. He married Abigail Montgomery (1826-1868), and the couple was living in the community of Cherokee when San Saba County was founded. When Abigail died, Elijah was left to care for 11 children, ages one to 19. Elijah married Jane (Burden) Williams in 1869, the daughter of Nathaniel (1798-1870) and Sarah Burden. In the early 1870s, Estep built this two-story building facing the courthouse out of locally quarried, rough-cut hard limestone. Each floor is a single 20 x 16 foot room with hewn beam ceiling joists and pine floor planking. A newer 10-foot square room attaches to the west end. Much later, the structure was mistakenly called “the Burden Hotel,” attributed to Nathaniel Burden from 1857, but records reveal that his property was on the north side of the square and that he died in 1870, the year before his son-in-law bought this lot for $75. The building became a residence and Estep operated a mercantile store on the east end of the same lot. The Estep family owned it until Sep. 1890, when prominent central Texas attorney Leigh Burleson bought the property for his law office. Later, E. E. Risien and his heirs owned the property for more than 50 years. The building was occasionally an annex to other businesses, but often remained vacant. It even faced deconstruction in the 1990s before local students helped persuade the William Fritz family (Fredericksburg) to donate the property to the community. The building was restored to its earliest known appearance from a 1911 photograph, including a gabled wooden front porch and exterior stairs. This symbol of San Saba’s frontier period also reminds us of the value of history fashioned from wood and stone.