Stagecoach Inn

Duane's take

The official marker's the one telling this tale, and I'm just the voice carrying it down the road. Now settle in, because this story goes back to 1856, out in DeWitt County, when a settler by the name of V. Hoch decided to do something that would outlast just about everything else around it.

He quarried the stone himself, native stone pulled right out of the ground by hand, and with it he built what would become the Stagecoach Inn. Not a bad thing to leave behind. The inn sat along the Austin-Indianola Stage Road, which meant a steady parade of travelers coming through, dusty and worn and ready for a moment's rest.

When the stagecoach rolled in, the drivers would swap out the four-horse teams, and while that work got done, the passengers stepped inside and found something worth the whole long ride: food, and hospitality. You have to imagine what that meant, out on that road, in that era. A hot meal and a kind welcome in a building of solid stone, built by one man's hands.

V. Hoch may have been a settler, but what he built was something people could count on. And in a country that hard, that is no small thing.

What the marker says

Built of hand-quarried native stone in 1856 by V. Hoch, a settler. Served as an inn on the Austin-Indianola Stage Road. While drivers changed four-horse teams, the passengers welcomed the chance to enjoy the inn's food and hospitality.