Mickelborough Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. There's a building sitting in Grimes County with a story that starts, as so many good Texas stories do, with fire. In 1874, a fire tore through a block, taking several structures down with it.

A woman named Eliza Johnson looked at that scorched gap in the streetscape and decided to fill it. She had a building constructed that same year, and she wasn't taking any chances the second time around. The city had passed an ordinance requiring all new construction to include fireproof materials, so Eliza Johnson built in limestone rubble.

Solid. Stubborn. The kind of material that doesn't apologize to fire.

Eliza Johnson passed away in 1876, just two years after seeing her building rise from the ashes of that block. She didn't get long with it, but the building got long with the world. A local investor named August Horst bought the property in 1877.

Now August held onto it for two years, then sold it to his wife's brothers, E. P. and J. H.

Mickelborough. That's how the building got its name on the marker, and the Mickelborough families held it from there all the way until 1929. Over those decades, that limestone building wore a lot of different hats.

It housed a saloon. A grocery. A confectionary.

An ice cream parlor. Attorneys set up offices inside its walls. Dentists too.

One building, all those lives passing through it. Eliza Johnson built it fireproof, and the story inside it never did burn out.

What the marker says

Eliza Johnson (d. 1876) had this building constructed in 1874 following a fire which destroyed several structures on the block. It was made of limestone rubble to comply with a city ordinance requiring all new construction to include fireproof materials. August Horst (d. 1920), a local investor, bought the property in 1877 and sold it two years later to his wife's brothers, E. P. and J. H. Mickelborough. Members of their families owned it until 1929. The building has housed a saloon, grocery, confectionary, ice cream parlor, and offices for attorneys and dentists.