Lesser's General Store - Main Street Historic District - Chappell Hill, TX
Posted by: 
Raven
N 30° 08.552 W 096° 15.434
14R E 764205 N 3337756
Constructed around 1890, the Lesser's General Store of Chappell Hill, TX has been owned by the German settler Lesser's family since its inception and is one of the 26 "Contributing" buildings within its NRHP-designated Main Street Historic District.
Waymark Code: WMME0D
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 09/06/2014
Views: 3
Chappell Hill's NRHP Main Street Historic District is an area covering 36 buildings, most of them built between 1850 and 1915 and reflecting the many variations in architectural style within that period in history. For more information on this particular Historic District, please see the following waymark: (
visit link)
The founding of the town of Chappell Hill is contributed to Mary Hargrove Haller who purchased a 100-acre site in this part of Texas on February 2, 1847 and subsequently commissioned a survey and the plotting of town lots. Just three years later, Mary Haller and her husband Jacob began building a two-story frame house now known as the "Stagecoach Inn" at the northwest corner of the center of that new town.
The Lesser's General Store, located just half a block South of the "Stagecoach Inn", was built 40 years after the town's founding, and is thus considered to be a "middle of the road" structure within the overall 1850-1915 time period. Nevertheless, a unique anecdote is that this particular store has remained not only its original architectural frame but owners as well: the building has been owned by the Lesser's family since its inception, as it still is today.
Per the official NRHP records, the building is a:
"Single-story, three-bay, late 19th-century, vernacular commercial building with clapboard siding. Depth of original structure, built ca. 1890, was 20 feet. Additional 20 feet added in 1907 by J. W. Heartfield. In 1911 rear brick addition, featuring 2/2 windows with stone lintels, and service entry were constructed. Facade contains three double front entry doors with narrow glass panels. Flat wooden canopy with standing seam metal roof is supported by four wooden posts. Wide gabled roof over entire structure covered with corrugated metal. Both interior and exterior of building remain virtually unaltered. Building has always been used for general merchandising and has remained in Lesser family since 1896."