Joseph Dienger Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight with a little color on the side. Way out in Kendall County, there stands a limestone commercial building with a story that runs deep and long. We're talking about the Joseph Dienger Building, and friend, this one's worth slowing down for.

Limestone. Two stories. Double galleries out front.

Victorian styling with a German touch baked right into the bones of the thing. You don't forget a building like that once you've seen it. Now, Joseph Dienger came into the picture in 1884, when he purchased the site.

Shortly after that purchase, this structure went up. Ground floor: his grocery. Second floor: living quarters for the family.

Joseph Dienger, born 1859, died 1950, had himself a building that did double duty as a place of business and a place of home, all under one roof. That's efficiency with a capital E. But the story doesn't stop at Joseph.

It never stops at just one person, does it. A later addition was built onto the structure, and that addition became the dry goods store run by Dienger's sisters, Lina and Louise. Two sisters, their own store, attached to their brother's grocery.

The whole family was in that building one way or another. That limestone held all of it. And here's the part that really settles on you: the building stayed in family hands until 1967.

Generations came and went, Boerne kept on growing, the world kept on changing, and that double-galleried, Victorian-styled, German-influenced limestone building just kept on standing, kept on belonging to the Dienges. Some things, when they're built right and held close, they last. The Joseph Dienger Building is proof of that.

What the marker says

This limestone commercial structure was built for Joseph Dienger (1859-1950) shortly after he purchased the site in 1884. The ground floor housed his grocery and the second floor provided living quarters for his family. A later addition was used for the dry goods store of Dienger's sisters Lina and Louise. Owned by family members until 1967, the double galleried building features Victorian styling with German influences. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980