Thurmond Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I tell it to you. Back in 1898, a man named C.L. Thurmond, Jr. put up a building on Bridge Street in Victoria, Texas.

Now, he didn't build it small. The centerpiece of the whole thing rises three stories, which, on a street full of commerce and ambition, is the kind of statement that says you plan to stick around. And stick around it did.

Thurmond built it to serve two purposes at once, a general mercantile store on one hand and a residence on the other, which tells you something about the man's efficiency. You live where you work, you never miss a customer. Bridge Street in those years before the nineteen hundreds was the beating heart of Victoria's commercial life.

Thurmond's building fit right in among similar structures, all of them prospering together, all of them doing the kind of business that makes a street feel like a destination. The Thurmond Building itself housed more than one venture over the years. Stores, a grain mill, and the Farmers' Cooperative all found a home within those walls.

That three-story central section kept watch over all of it. Then the rail lines and roads got relocated, and when the traffic moved, so did the prosperity. The business district on Bridge Street felt that shift.

But the building, it stayed. Three stories tall, right where C.L. Thurmond, Jr. put it in 1898, still telling the story of what Bridge Street used to be.

What the marker says

C.L. Thurmond, Jr. constructed this building in 1898 for use as a general mercantile store and residence. It is similar to other structures built here before the 1900s, when Bridge Street was a major commercial center of Victoria. The business district prospered until nearby rail lines and roads were relocated. The Thurmond Building, which features a distinctive three-story central section, housed stores, a grain mill, and the Farmers' Cooperative. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980