Vogelsang Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight with a little color on top. You're looking at the Vogelsang Building, and it has got a story worth slowing down for. Jacob Gray put this building up in 1910, solid brick from the ground up, the kind of construction meant to outlast the man who ordered it.

And sure enough, it did. Six years later, in 1916, a fellow named Louis A. Vogelsang came along and leased the place for his general merchandise business.

Now, Vogelsang was not the kind of man to rent what he could own. By 1922, he bought the property outright, and he kept right on running that store, year after year, until 1947. Think about that.

Thirty-one years at the same address, same building, same brick walls Jacob Gray laid down in 1910. The store was the man, and the man was the store. When Louis Vogelsang finally closed up shop in 1947, he was not a young fellow.

He had been born in 1874, and he would go on until 1961, long after the last customer walked out that door. Now look up at the building itself, because the marker wants you to. Brick construction, a simple corbelled cornice up top, segmented-arch windows on the upper floor, shop-front windows and doors down below where the customers used to come and go.

And somebody took the time to paint the bricks in a way that brings out the hood molds, the bands, the cornices. Decorative, but not showy. Practical, but not plain.

Just like the business it housed for all those decades. Jacob Gray built it to last. Louis Vogelsang used it like he meant to keep it forever.

And here it still stands.

What the marker says

Built in 1910 by Jacob Gray, this building was leased by Louis a. Vogelsang (1874-1961) in 1916 for his general merchandise business. Vogelsang bought the property in 1922, and continued to operate his store at this site until 1947. The early commercial building features brick construction with simple corbelled cornice, segmented-arch upper windows and shop-front lower windows and doors. Painting of bricks highlights the hood molds, bands, and cornices. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1986