Original Gruene Mercantile

Duane's take

The way I heard it told, the marker on this one says it plain, so let me give you the official story of the Original Gruene Mercantile, right here in Comal County. Now, 1878 is where we begin. Henry D.

Gruene had himself a cotton farm, and he needed somewhere for all those working families to get what they needed. So he founded the Gruene Mercantile, and right away it was pulling more weight than your average general store. Food, clothing, household goods, farm implements.

That's just the start of it. The place was also a stage stop, meaning weary travelers rolling through had reason to pull up and rest a spell. It was a post office on top of that.

One building doing the work of several, out there on the Texas plain. But here is the detail that makes this story sing. H.

D. Gruene had a distillery, and that mercantile served as his distribution point for the product. The brand was called Green River whiskey.

So you could walk in for a sack of flour, post a letter to your cousin in San Antonio, catch a stage east, and walk out with a bottle of Green River. That wooden building was doing a lot of living. Then came 1904.

The original wooden structure was removed to another site. And right across the street, on that same original ground, a new two-story red brick mercantile went up in its place. One era cleared out, and another one built right on top of the memory.

That's Gruene for you.

What the marker says

Founded in 1878 by Henry D. Gruene to serve the families working on his cotton farm, the original Gruene Mercantile served many purpose for the community. In addition to providing food, clothing, household goods and farm implements, the store was a stage stop and a post office. It was also used as a distribution point for H. D. Gruene's distillery, selling his Green River brand whiskey. The wooden bulding was removed to site in 1904 when a new two-story red brick mercantile structure was erected on the original site across the street.