Union Mercantile

Duane's take

Here's how the marker outside tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Way out in Jeff Davis County, in 1873, two men named O. M.

Keesey and Geo. Gaither put up an adobe building and called it Union Mercantile. Now, adobe is honest frontier architecture; it'll keep you cool, keep the wind out, and remind you every single day that civilization is still workin' on arrivin'.

But what those walls held inside, that's where the story gets interesting. The store passed to a man named W. Keesey, an army baker by trade, which tells you something about a man who can pivot.

Because W. Keesey did not limit himself to biscuits. He sold clothing and groceries, sure.

He sold guns and whiskey, naturally. But he also sold cradles and coffins, which means he was prepared to see you into this world and see you right back out of it. Somewhere in between, he could fix you up with tobacco, spittoons, wagonwheels, harness, and he did private banking on top of all of it.

The man was not leavin' money on the table. Now here is the detail that stops me cold every time. W.

Keesey ran the first telephone in the entire county right out of that store. And the line? Barbed wire.

Strung out across the rangeland to the ranches. Regular fencing wire carrying human voices across Jeff Davis County. In 1906, Keesey decided adobe had done its job long enough, and he replaced it with the stone structure that's standin' there to this day.

That building changed hands one more time; T. T. Kelly bought it in 1964.

One building. Adobe to stone. Cradles to coffins.

Barbed wire to the future. Union Mercantile held the whole span of frontier life inside four walls, and it's still there to prove it.

What the marker says

Founded 1873 by O. M. Keesey and Geo. Gaither in adobe building on this site. Later owned by W. Keesey, an army baker, who sold clothing, groceries, cradles, guns, whiskey, coffins, tobacco, spittoons, wagonwheels, and harness, and did private banking. First telephone in county operated out of store via barbed wire line to ranches. In 1906 he replaced the adobe with this stone structure that was bought by T. T. Kelly, 1964. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965