DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm going to give it to you straight with a little Medina County flavor on top. Picture D'Hanis, Texas, sometime around 1878. A man named John Fohn, born in Prussia back in 1839, puts up a building.
Not just any building. This thing pulls double duty from the start. Out front, it's a general mercantile store.
Inside, it's also where D'Hanis holds its elections and where the Justice of the Peace keeps his court. Commerce, civic duty, and the law, all under one roof. John Fohn was running the whole show.
Now, Fohn passed in 1891, and the building passed to his estate. That's where the story takes a turn. In 1897, a man named Rolf Frerichs, born in 1833, purchases the building from the Fohn Estate.
And here's the part that always gets me. Frerichs didn't just buy it. He moved it.
Picked that store-residence up and relocated it to this very spot where you're standing now. What he did with it after that is where the Bless name comes in. Frerichs' son-in-law, a fellow by the name of C.J.
Bless, born in 1864, took over and operated a store here. He kept that store running until 1939. After that, the Medina Electric Cooperative moved in and occupied the building until 1963.
So when you look at this old structure, you're looking at something that started as one man's Prussian ambition in D'Hanis, got picked up and carried to a new address, and then kept right on serving this community decade after decade. Some buildings just refuse to be done.
What the marker says
Store-residence built in D'Hanis about 1878 by John Fohn (1839-91), a native of Prussia. In addition to a general mercantile store, the structure was also the site of D'Hanis elections and a Justice of the Peace Court. In 1897, Rolf Frerichs (1833-1913) purchased the building from the Fohn Estate and moved it to this location. Frerichs' son-in-law, C.J. Bless (1864-1944), operated a store here until 1939. Medina Electric Cooperative occupied the building until 1963. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1974.