Henry Cordes House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'll tell it to you. Deep in the Hill Country, in Fredericksburg, Gillespie County, there stands a limestone house that has been quietly making a point for well over a century now. The point being: when you build something right, it stays built.

Henry Cordes was born here in Fredericksburg in 1861, a native son through and through. And in 1893, he had this limestone residence constructed. Three rooms.

That's where it started. Just three rooms, cut and fitted from the same Hill Country stone that early area stonemasons had turned into something of an art form. And that craftsmanship, that's not my word for it.

That's what the marker says. Quality craftsmanship. You look at that stonework and you understand why they chose that word.

Now, Henry didn't just have the house. The grounds came with a smokehouse, a tankhouse, and a stone cistern. Whoever was living there had thought through what a life actually requires, day to day, season to season.

Henry worked for many years in the Reliance Roller Mill and in the Stein Ice House. Two different trades, two different rhythms of work, and through all of it, he and his wife Emma, born a Crenwelge, raised three children in this community. Three rooms, three children, one family putting down roots in the same soil where Henry himself had been born.

Sometimes a story doesn't need a dramatic twist. Sometimes the whole point is that a man from Fredericksburg built something in Fredericksburg that is still standing in Fredericksburg, and the stone remembers every bit of it.

What the marker says

Fredericksburg native Henry Cordes (b. 1861) had this limestone residence constructed in 1893. Originally a three-room structure, it is a good example of the quality craftsmanship practiced by early area stonemasons. the grounds include a smokehouse, a tankhouse and a stone cistern. Cordes worked for many years in the Reliance Roller Mill and in the Stein Ice House. He and his wife Emma (Crenwelge) were the parents of three children. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981