102-104 NE Barnard St - Glen Rose Downtown Historic District - Glen Rose, TX - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

The Sadler's Drug Store Building is a masonry One-part Commercial Block with three bays constructed from locally quarried limestone. It measures 22 feet across and 70 feet 1 inch long, with a flat roof that tapers toward the rear for drainage. The front originally had two free-standing stone piers supporting the upper façade, but by the 1930s they had were replaced with iron pipe supports. At this time plate glass display windows with cuprous molding and a recessed double-door entry were installed. During this renovation a row of rectangular transom windows were put in place above the entry and display area. During most of its history the building had a variety of wooden and corrugated galvanized sheet steel awnings, most of the time the outer edge being suspended from the wall on iron rod supports though at times also stabilized with iron pipe uprights. Historic photographs show that these awnings frequently covered the transom windows, making them less effective as sources of interior natural lighting than they might otherwise have been. These transoms currently are covered with a stucco-like material. At the time of this study, the building has a visually compatible fabric-covered awning that is wall-mounted on a steel framework. The Sadler's Drug Store Building shares side walls with its two adjoining structures. Its ashlar limestone rear wall with three different visible varieties of mortar has a central single doorway with historic wooden framing and a sash window on either side that have been enclosed. There is a rain gutter across the rear with downspouts on each side.

The Sadler's Drug Store Building begins appearing in historic photographs of the Glen Rose Courthouse Square at the turn of the twentieth century and prior to the 28 April 1902 tornado that destroyed much of the town. During most of its early years the building served as Sadler's Drug Store and as the Glen Rose Drug Company. By the 1920s the space had been acquired by local businessman J.E. Ward, who began using the space to house his dry cleaning and tailoring business. During the 1940s Ward rented out half of the building to Jake Howeth to use as a barber shop, and by the 1950s Ward added the local distributorship for the Dallas Morning News newspaper to his own business activities. For six two year terms starting in 1960, J.E. Ward served as the representative for District 52 in the Texas Legislature and his tailor shop doubled as his local office for legislative matters. By the 1980s the J.D. Echols Cleaners occupied Ward's old place of business and for a time shared the old Sadler's Drug Store Building with the Glen Rose Chamber of Commerce. At the time of this study, the building housed the Rose Creek on the Square jewelry store.