R. J. Hill Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Now, Palacios was a young town, still finding its footing, when Robert J. Hill and his wife Kate Elizabeth, born Breggan, pulled up and made it home in 1904, right on the heels of the town's own founding.

Robert, born in 1864, and Kate Elizabeth didn't waste much time putting down roots. By 1910 they had commissioned a contractor named J. G.

Bontrager to build them something solid, something that would last. And Bontrager delivered. What he put up was a concrete block commercial building, the kind of structure that tells a town it has arrived.

Ground floor went to a mercantile store, upper floor to living quarters, because when you're building a life and a business in a young Texas coastal town, you keep them close together. Now, here's where the story gets interesting, because that building didn't just sit there being one thing. It became many things over many years.

Medical offices moved in. Then came the lean years, the Depression, and that building opened itself up as a canning kitchen, feeding and preserving in hard times. Later it served as an American Legion hall, then a Montgomery Ward store, and eventually a museum.

Robert J. Hill died in 1930, but the building carrying his name just kept on working. It stands downtown Palacios to this day, dressed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, with all those architectural flourishes that say someone cared enough to build it right.

A mercantile, a kitchen, a hall, a store, a museum. One building, one family's mark on a town, and it's still standing.

What the marker says

Robert J. (1864-1930) and Kate Elizabeth (Breggan) Hill came to Palacios in 1904, soon after its founding. Contractor J. G. Bontrager built this concrete block commercial building for them in 1910. It originally housed a mercantile store with living quarters on the upper floor. Later uses included medical offices, a Depression-era canning kitchen, American Legion hall, Montgomery Ward store and a museum. Featuring elements of the Richardsonian Romanesque style, the Hill Building remains a prominent structure in downtown Palacios. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2000