Woolls Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Out in Center Point, there stands a limestone building that has been minding its own business, and everybody else's, since the days when the Hill Country was still figuring itself out. The Woolls Building.

One of the oldest commercial structures still standing in Center Point, and it's got a story worth slowing down for. George W. Woolls had this place constructed between 1873 and 1875 to house his mercantile business.

Now George didn't live long enough to see what his building would become. He passed in 1876, just a year after the doors opened. But the building, it kept going.

A local contractor and stonemason by the name of Sam H. Wellborn cut and set the limestone, gave the place a full-width balcony, and an exterior staircase that said to the whole town, come on up, something's happening on the second floor. And something was.

For most of its history, the first floor handled the commerce, the retail businesses, the day-to-day necessities of a working Texas town. But that upper story, that's where it gets interesting. Fraternal organizations claimed those rooms, and among them was the Rising Star Masonic Lodge.

Now the Rising Star Lodge met in this building from 1875 until 1900, and their membership included a number of Texas Rangers. Think about that the next time you climb a staircase. George Woolls built for a mercantile, Sam Wellborn laid the stone, and for twenty-five years, men who rode hard country gathered quietly above the shopkeepers.

The building's still there. The limestone holds.

What the marker says

One of Center Point's oldest existing commercial structures, the Woolls Building was constructed in 1873-75 to house the mercantile business of George W. Woolls (d. 1876). Local contractor and stonemason Sam H. Wellborn built it of limestone with a full-width balcony and exterior staircase. For most of its history, the first floor of the Woolls Building housed retail businesses, with fraternal organizations meeting on the upper story. The Rising Star Masonic Lodge, which included a number of Texas Rangers among its membership, met here from 1875 until 1900. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2001