Garage - Main Street Historic District - Chappell Hill, TX
Posted by: 
Raven
N 30° 08.557 W 096° 15.425
14R E 764219 N 3337766
Constructed in 1853-54, the "Garage" in history-rich town of Chappell Hill, TX used to be a commercial building originally known as Buster's Drug Store, and also functioned as a bakery around 1884.
Waymark Code: WMN6AZ
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/03/2015
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 "Garage", located just half a block South of the "Stagecoach Inn", was built in 1853 -- the early years of the town's founding -- used to be a commercially building known as Buster's Drug Store and later became a bakery. It was built by M. P. Munyan, a contractor for many of the early Chappell Hill structures. The building is nowadays just used as a storage shed for a local resident and isn't much to look at, but its overall structural components are still from the original 1853 structure.
Per the
Texas Historical Commission Atlas records, the so-called "garage" includes the following features:
"Single-story, two-bay, wood-frame structure which, prior to conversion into a garage, was a commercial building originally known as Buster's Drug Store. Current structure features a single-end support column at mid-span, wood paneling on the interior, and corrugated metal covering the side walls and gable roof of corrugated metal. Original wooden support system of 1854 building still intact. Reportedly one of the earliest buildings constructed on Main Street, the original structure was built by Marcus P. Munyon; a lien placed on the property by him provides an excellent architectural description. The small original structure featured a simple-stepped false-front gable end with plain molding, one pair of sash doors measuring 7 1/2 x 4 feet, one shuttered 12-light front window, a tongue-and-grooved floor, and weatherboard siding. An historic photograph of this building indicates that the window no longer appeared in front, and a section on the lower level next to main retail portion had been opened up as a garage or loading room. In the 1930s the store was converted into a open garage. The length was shortened at back and the tongue-and-groove flooring removed. In 1884 Henry Schaer operated a bakery in the small building. The current structure is still owned by the Schaer family."