Hotel Brendle

Duane's take

The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just passing it along. The community of Robstown grew up around a junction. Not just any junction, mind you, but the meeting point of the Texas-Mexican and the St.

Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico railroads. Where two rail lines cross, people follow, and where people follow, somebody is going to build a place for them to sleep. In 1914, two men saw that plain as daylight.

C.C. Brendle and V.V. Elick purchased land right at this site, and they were deliberate about it.

Their stated purpose was to construct a hotel as close as possible to the railroad station. No accident, no coincidence. They knew exactly what they were doing.

The hotel they built was completed that same year, 1914, and it opened with thirty-six rooms. Thirty-six rooms, right there at the crossroads of two railroads in a young South Texas town. It became a center of activity for the community, and for many years it gave traveling salesmen a place not just to sleep but to spread out their goods and do their business.

The hotel was a kind of showroom on top of being a hotel, which tells you something about the pace of commerce moving through Robstown in those years. Now C.C. Brendle himself was no outsider drifting through.

He had come to Robstown in 1908, and by the time he and Elick broke ground on that hotel, he was already known as a local gin operator, a developer, and an area farmer. Born in 1859, he passed in 1929, and he never saw what came next. Because what came next was the Great Depression, and during those hard years the hotel passed out of the hands of the Brendle family entirely.

It landed in the hands of the Sons of Hermann, a German fraternal organization, and that is a chapter of the building's life all its own. The building itself has held up, and it has something to say for itself architecturally. Three stories tall, with a brick parapet running along the top, a red tile roof sitting on brackets, and a semi-circular arch over the doorway.

You look at it and you understand it was meant to be seen, meant to announce itself to anyone stepping off a train. The Hotel Brendle stands today as a reminder of Robstown's early commercial growth. Two railroad lines crossed here, two men bought land, and thirty-six rooms opened their doors.

That's how a town announces it has arrived.

What the marker says

The community of Robstown developed around the traffic generated by the junction of the Texas-Mexican and the St. Louis, Brownsville, & Mexico railroads. In 1914 C.C. Brendle and V.V. Elick purchased land at this site for the purpose of constructing a hotel as close as possible to the railroad station. Completed the same year, the hotel Brendle opened with 36 rooms and became a center of activity for the community. For many years the hotel provided space for traveling salesmen to display their goods. C.C. Brendle (1859-1929) was a local gin operator, developer, and area farmer who came to Robstown in 1908. His partner in the hotel, V.V. Elick, also was a partner in his gin interests. The hotel passed out of the hands of the Brendle Family during the great depression and later was owned by the Sons of Hermann, a German fraternal organization. Interesting architectural features of the three-story hotel include a brick parapet, a red tile roof supported on brackets, and a semi-circular arch over the doorway. The Hotel Brendle stands as a reminder of Robstown's early commercial growth. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1984