The Schandua Building

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of the Schandua Building in Gillespie County. In 1897, somebody took hand-hewn limestone and stacked it into something meant to last. That somebody was John Schandua, and he built this place to serve double duty from the very start.

Downstairs, a hardware store. Upstairs, a home, where John and his wife Bertha, born a Klein, raised their children above the sound of commerce. Now that's a particular kind of life, hearing the customers come and go right beneath your floorboards.

But it worked, and for a time, it worked for more than just the Schanduas. The Masonic Lodge needed a place to meet, and the building needed some help with construction costs, so an arrangement was made. The Lodge met upstairs, and the costs got covered.

Practical as limestone itself. Then came 1900, and John Schandua died. That's where the story takes one of those turns you don't see coming.

John's brother Henry stepped forward. He married Bertha. He enlarged the building.

And he kept the hardware business going right there on the first floor, same as before, just under new hands. Bertha herself lived on until 1943. Through all of it, that building kept doing what it was built to do.

Hardware businesses ran out of that hand-hewn limestone structure clear through 1972. Seventy-five years of nails and tools and neighbors walking through the door. That is not a building that let anybody down.

What the marker says

Erected in 1897 of hand-hewn limestone, this structure was the home of John (d. 1900) and Bertha (Klein) Schandua (d. 1943). They lived upstairs with their children and John's hardware store was downstairs. For a time, the Masonic Lodge met upstairs in exchange for some construction costs. After John died his brother Henry married Bertha. Enlarged the building, and continued the hardware business on the first floor. Hardware businesses were operated here until 1972. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1979