DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Sherley Hardware Store in Anna, Texas. Now, every good Texas story has its roots somewhere else, and this one starts in Kentucky. Lewis and Paulina Sherley packed up and moved to north Texas around 1853 — new land, new life, the whole proposition.
They put down roots, raised a family, and the years rolled on. Then 1872 comes along, and the town of Anna gets established. And when a new town rises up, you know what it needs?
Hardware. So Lewis and Paulina's grandsons — brothers Andrew and Fred Sherley — they saw their moment and they opened a hardware store. Two grandsons of Kentucky transplants, building something right there on the north Texas prairie.
Business must've been good, because in 1894 they built the structure that's standing to this day. Brick and purpose, right there on the street. And what didn't they sell out of that place?
Farming implements, machinery, wagons, furniture — and they were undertakers too, which tells you something about the full range of human need they were prepared to meet. Cotton, grain, groceries. If Anna needed it, the Sherley brothers likely had it.
Out front, there were wagon-weighing scales. Farmers would roll in heavy-loaded and find out exactly what they were hauling. Those scales eventually came out when the road got widened — progress taking a little piece of the old story, the way it tends to do.
The store ran all the way to 1979, more than eighty years in business, and even after it closed, the building stayed in the family. That's loyalty to something built well. And the building itself — it's worth a long look.
Original canopy still there. Painted signs still there. The brickwork up on the parapet has that corbelled detailing, and the storefront display windows still carry their paneled kickplates.
Minimal Victorian-era touches, the marker calls them, but they give the place a quiet dignity that a lot of buildings twice its age never managed to hold onto. Lewis and Paulina came out of Kentucky with nothing but intention. Their grandsons built something in brick in 1894 that's still standing, still speaking.
Not bad for a hardware store in north Texas.
What the marker says
Lewis and Paulina Sherley moved to north Texas from Kentucky about 1853. When the town of Anna was established in 1872, their grandsons, brothers Andrew and Fred Sherley, opened a hardware store. In 1894 they built this structure to house the business. It remained in the family after the store closed in 1979. Over time they were undertakers as well as purveyors of furniture, farming implements and machinery, wagons, cotton, grain and groceries. Wagon-weighing scales in front of the building were removed when the road was widened. The structure is a fine example of an early Texas commercial building, retaining the original canopy and painted signs. Minimal Victorian-era detailing includes corbelled brickwork in the parapet and paneled kickplates on storefront display windows.Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1999