DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about The Walter Tips Company Building, right there in Travis County. Now, some buildings just hold merchandise. And then there are buildings that hold whole lives — whole eras — within their walls.
The Walter Tips Company Building is very much the second kind. It starts, as so many Texas stories do, with somebody coming from somewhere else. Walter Tips was born in Germany in 1841, and by 1849 — he was just eight years old — his family had made the crossing and set down roots in the United States.
He grew up, served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, and by the time 1872 rolled around, he was a man ready to do business. That year, Walter and two partners — Williams Clemens and Joseph Faust, both of New Braunfels — purchased an Austin hardware business. Now, the previous owner of that business was a man named Edward Tips.
Walter's brother. Edward had died earlier that same year, which means Walter wasn't just buying a hardware store — he was stepping into a chapter that grief had left unfinished. He and his partners took it on.
And Walter, in time, became sole proprietor. Located right on the site of Edward's original store, a new building went up in 1876 and 1877. And whoever commissioned it wasn't thinking small.
The architect was Jasper N. Preston, a noted name in Austin, and he designed something worth stopping for — Victorian Italianate styling with Gothic details, an ornate cornice, carvings done by local stonemasons, and side walls built from limestone rubble. Inside on the ground floor, cast iron columns opened up a wide, unobstructed commercial space.
The kind of room that meant business. But go up to the third floor, and the building had a different personality entirely. Up there you'd find a room set aside for Masonic Lodge meetings, and beyond that, a four-hundred-seat auditorium available to the library association.
A hardware store with a lecture hall on top. That, friends, tells you something about Walter Tips. Because Walter wasn't a man who stopped at hardware.
He served in the Texas Senate from 1893 to 1896. He took on other state government positions. He helped found the Austin National Bank.
The marker calls him an active civic leader, and the evidence backs that up at every turn. The Walter Tips Company stayed in that building all the way until 1927. Other businesses came through after that, each one borrowing a little time inside those limestone walls.
Then in 1978, Franklin Savings Association bought the structure and restored it — brought it back to serve as their home office. A German boy who came to America at eight years old, stepped into a business shadowed by loss, and built something — a company, a building, a public life — that people were still preserving more than a hundred years later. That's not just a hardware store.
That's a life's work in brick and limestone.
What the marker says
German native Walter Tips (1841-1911) migrated to the United States with his family in 1849 and served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. In 1872 he and his partners, Williams Clemens and Joseph Faust of New Braunfels, purchased the Austin hardware business of Tips' brother Edward who had died earlier that year. Walter later became sole proprietor. Located on the site of Edward's store, this company building was constructed in 1876-77. Designed by the noted Austin architect Jasper N. Preston, it features Victorian Italiante styling with Gothic details, an ornate cornice, carvings by local stonemasons, and side walls of limestone rubble. Interior cast iron columns on the ground fllor provided a large open commercial area. The third floor included a room for Masonic Lodge meetings and a 400-seat auditorium for use by the library association. Tips later served in the Texas Senate, 1893-96, and in other state government positions. An active civic leader, he also helped found the Austin National Bank. The Walter Tips Company remained here until 1927 and the building later housed other businesses. In 1978 Franklin Savings Association bought the structure and restored it for use as their home office. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980