Old Rock Store

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's what happened in Chappell Hill. Back in 1869, a merchant by the name of John E. Glass decided that if he was going to build a store, he was going to build one that would outlast just about everything else in town.

And friend, he was not wrong. Glass put up what would become the town's early masonry store, and he did not cut a single corner doing it. The walls are thick sandstone, the kind of walls that don't apologize to anybody, not to the weather, not to the years, not to whatever the next century might decide to throw at them.

The timbers inside are massive pine, hand-hewn and pegged, put together the old way, the honest way, the way where the wood itself does the work. And the doors, the window shutters, all of it fastened together with square nails. Square nails.

That detail right there ought to tell you something about the era this building came out of. Over the years, the old rock store has kept itself useful. Grocers have set up shop inside those sandstone walls.

The Chappell Hill Post Office has called it home. Tenants have come and gone, but the building just keeps standing there on its thick foundation, quiet and patient, doing what John E. Glass built it to do back in 1869.

Some things in Texas are built to last. This one proved it.

What the marker says

Town's early masonry store, built 1869 by merchant John E. Glass. Has thick sandstone walls, massive hand-hewn and pegged pine timbers, doors and window shutters made with square nails. Tenants have been grocers and the Chappell Hill Post Office.