110 NE Barnard St (Martin & Sons Grocery Building) - Glen Rose Downtown Historic District - Glen Rose, TX - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

The National Register's Registration Form provides a fairly lengthy description:

The Martin & Sons Grocery Building is a three-bay One-part Commercial Block building with a brick front and an ashlar limestone rear. It measures 25 feet 9 inches wide in the front, 25 feet 8 inches wide in the rear, and 85 feet in length; shares side walls with the adjacent buildings; and has a flat roof that slopes to the rear for drainage. When this building was constructed in 1927 following a destructive fire, similar work was undertaken next-door at 112 Northeast Barnard Street. At this time the two separate buildings at 110 and 112 Northeast Barnard were given a shared brick facade and similar rear building treatments. The three-bay front of Martin & Sons Grocery Building has a recessed double entrance door flanked on either side by plate glass display windows that retain historic cuprous metal frames. Above the double entry doors, each with twelve fixed panes of glass, is a glass transom. The area over the display windows and entry has now-covered rectangular transom windows that originally allowed light to enter the sales area from above an awning over
the sidewalk. The facade above window level bears a decorative geometric pattern of red, brown, and black bricks with limestone inserts, with pilasters on each end of the front including similar brick ornamentation. Currently a wooden awning with curved plywood trim mounted on juniper timber support posts and bearing a shake single covering provides
shade to pedestrians on the concrete sidewalk at the front. The ashlar limestone rear of the Martin & Sons Grocery Building has centrally placed tall wooden double doors flanked on each side by a former tall, narrow sash window opening that has been filled in. The back doors show evidence of having been lowered.

The location of Martin & Sons Grocery Building was occupied for many years by the W.L. Lilly & Sons Grocery, which operated in a two-story wood-frame building for decades starting around the turn of the twentieth century. In late 1926 a fire destroyed four places of business on the southeast side of the courthouse square, including the one at 110 Northeast Barnard Street, which at the time housed the Whitehouse Cafe. The building was rebuilt in conjunction with reconstruction next-door at 112 Northeast Barnard Street, giving the two structures a shared decorative brick front and similar stone rear treatments. It was about the time of this rebuilding that I.E. Martin opened a new grocery store inside the commercial space at 110 Northeast Barnard Street. Little did anyone imagine that his son, Coll Martin, and other family members would continue this food store operation until 1973. Martin & Sons Grocery became an institution among Glen Rose residents, with many people seeing it as the town’s last old-time grocery store. Still remembered among local residents is its walk-in freezer vault where people could rent food storage compartments. The slogan of the store was "On the Square," referring not just to its location but also to its honest dealings with customers. Since the closing of Martin & Sons Grocery, the commercial space has housed several businesses, the most recent and current one at the time of writing being the His & Hers Salon hairdressing establishment.

Name of Historic District (as listed on the NRHP): Glen Rose Downtown Historic District Link to nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com page with the Historic District: [Web Link] Address: 110 NE Barnard St, Glen Rose, TX 76043 How did you determine the building to be a contributing structure?: Narrative found on the internet (Link provided below) Optional link to narrative or database: [Web Link] NRHP Historic District Waymark (Optional): Not listed

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