DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the marker on this spot tells it, far as Duane's concerned. Now, you might drive past this old limestone building and not think twice — but let me tell you what was happening inside these walls, and who put them there. Johann Nicholas Menger, born in Germany in 1807, made his way to Texas with the Castro Colony, and by 1847 he had planted himself in San Antonio.
Give the man three years — just three — and by 1850 he had himself a factory up and running, turning out soap for much of the city and all across southwest Texas. Not a small operation, not a side hustle. The man was supplying a region.
Now, soap doesn't sound like the stuff of legend, but you try living in nineteenth-century Texas without it and see how that goes. Menger kept at it, kept growing, and by 1873 he had built what you're looking at right now — this limestone structure, solid as the day is long, an important example of an early industrial building in its own right. He ran the whole works off the waters of San Pedro Creek, which, if you think about it, is about as Texas a solution as there is — find what the land gives you and put it to work.
That factory hummed along, soap flowing out to a thirsty, dusty Southwest, all the way into the early part of the twentieth century. Johann Nicholas Menger died in 1892, but the works he built in limestone and creek water outlasted him. Some things, if you build them right, just refuse to quit.
What the marker says
Johann Nicholas Menger (1807-1892), a native of Germany, came to Texas with the Castro Colony and moved to San Antonio in 1847. In 1850 he started a factory that supplied soap for much of the city and southwest Texas. By 1873, Menger had built this limestone structure, an important example of an early industial building, to house his soap works. Utilizing the waters of San Pedro Creek, the factory operated until the early part of the twentieth century.