DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll let the story do the talkin'. Way back in 1866, a man named W. T.
Connor walked into Daingerfield and opened up a mercantile business. Now, that alone might not raise an eyebrow, but Connor was playin' a long game. By the time the 1880s rolled around, he had pulled his son into the picture, a contractor named T.
C. Connor, and together they put up not one but two adjacent storehouses right on this very site. The elder Connor supplied the vision.
The younger Connor supplied the work, doing the construction himself. Two buildings, side by side, solid as conviction. Then comes the first twist.
In 1890, T. C. Connor sold his building.
Gone. Out of the family. You might think that was the end of the Connor chapter, but here is where the story gets interesting.
Nearly half a century drifts by, doctors set up offices in those walls, merchants stack their shelves, public agencies come and go, and then in 1938, the family quietly reached back in and reclaimed ownership of T. C.'s building. They held onto it all the way until 1968.
W. T. Connor himself had passed in 1920, but those walls he and his son raised kept right on standing.
The McKellar Company came along in 1974, bought the property, and combined the two structures into one. And that's the thing about these buildings. They are rare examples of Victorian business buildings still in use.
Connor put down roots in Daingerfield in 1866, and more than a hundred years later, the buildings he and his son built are still earning their keep. Some legacies don't need a tombstone. Sometimes two old storefronts say plenty.
What the marker says
W. T. Connor (d. 1920) opened a mercantile business in 1866 in Daingerfield. In the 1880s, he and his contractor son, T. C. Connor, erected adjacent storehouses on this site, with his son doing the construction. Although T.C. Connor sold his building in 1890, the family regained ownership in 1938, to be retained until 1968. Occupants have included doctors, merchants, and various public agencies. The McKellar Company bought this property in 1974, combining the structures, which are rare examples of Victorian business buildings still in use.