Old Rock Store

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it; and friend, this one earns every word. Somewhere around 1865, an Irish stonemason by the name of Pat Cavanaugh set to work in a place called Dog Town. Had a man named Dick Barker helping him.

And what they built, stone by careful stone, was a store. Not a grand courthouse, not a fort, just a store. But the walls they raised were solid enough to outlast just about everything that came after them.

And plenty came after them. See, Dog Town (you know it today as Tilden, down in McMullen County) was what the old-timers called wide open. That's a polite way of saying the law hadn't quite found its footing yet.

The 1860s and 1870s were a lawless era in that part of Texas, and that old rock store sat right in the middle of it. Gun battles. Right there at the store.

The kind of thing that leaves marks on a building, and on a place's memory. Now here's where the story turns a different direction. That store, built to survive a rough frontier, kept right on surviving.

By 1929, a man named Clifton Wheeler owned it, and he made sure it stayed standing. Preserved it. Held the line against time the same way those rock walls had held the line against everything else.

Pat Cavanaugh cut those stones about 1865. Clifton Wheeler was still protecting them in 1929. Some buildings just refuse to let go of the ground they're standing on, and in McMullen County, that's saying something.

What the marker says

Built about 1865 by Pat Cavanaugh, Irish stonemason, assisted by Dick Barker. Site of gun battles in Dog Town (now Tilden), "wide open" during lawless era of the 1860's and 1870's. Preserved since 1929 by Clifton Wheeler, owner. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966