Eiband and Fischer General Mercantile

The 1910 building was meant to impress, with a skylight over the middle of the roof and a grand staircase to a mezzanine for gifts and fine clothing. Shoppers would not climb, so those goods moved to the basement. Ernst Scherff had earlier added a campground behind the store for country customers. The March 2, 1947 fire began in the basement and burned unnoticed overnight until a bakery salesman saw smoke; hunting stock stored below reportedly went off loudly enough to be heard for miles. A small section across an alley traded until 1959.

What the plaque says

Eiband and Fischer General Mercantile EIBAND & FISCHER GENERAL MERCANTILE IN 1846, ONE YEAR AFTER NEW BRAUNFELS WAS FOUNDED, A MERCANTILE COMPANY OWNED BY JAMES FERGUSON AND HENRY HESSLER OPENED ON THE CORNER OF CASTELL AND SAN ANTONIO STREETS. BY 1858, BOTH MEN HAD DIED AND ERNST SCHERFF, AN EMPLOYEE, PURCHASED THE BUSINESS FROM FERGUSON'S WIDOW. THE NAME CHANGED TO ERNST SCHERFF MERCANTILE. SIX YEARS LATER, SCHERFF MOVED THE BUSINESS TO THE CENTER OF TOWN ON THE CORNER OF MAIN PLAZA AND SEGUIN STREET. SCHERFF, AS SOLE OWNER, GREW HIS BUSINESS INTO ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL IN THE REGION. IN 1887, SCHERFF LEASED THE BUSINESS TO HIS NEPHEW, GEORGE KNOKE FROM GERMANY, AND GEORGE EIBAND, AN EMPLOYEE. THE BUSINESS BECAME KNOWN AS KNOKE & EIBAND. IN THE LATE 1890s, ERNST (E.A.) EIBAND (GEORGE'S BROTHER) AND EMIL FISCHER, BOTH EMPLOYEES, LEASED THE BUSINESS. IN 1910, A WEEKLONG GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION FOR THE ENLARGED EIBAND & FISCHER, INC. TOOK PLACE AND WAS ATTENDED BY CROWDS FROM SURROUNDING AREAS. THE MERCANTILE CONTINUED SUCCESSFULLY SELLING GROCERIES, PIECE GOODS, CLOTHING, CHINA, CRYSTAL, FARM MACHINERY, FEED AND SEED TO LOCAL CITIZENS, FARMERS AND RANCHERS. LIKE THEIR PREDECESSORS, THEY ALSO SERVED AS COTTON BUYERS AND SHORT-TERM BANKERS. THE PROPERTY WAS BOUGHT BY EIBAND & FISCHER IN 1929. ON MARCH 2, 1947, THE STORE WAS CONSUMED BY FIRE. THE ANNEX ACROSS THE COURTYARD WAS UNTOUCHED AND SERVED AS THE STORE FOR TWELVE YEARS AFTER THE FIRE. THE BURNED OUT SHELL OF THE BASEMENT SERVED AS THE HOME OF WURSTFEST FROM 1963-1966. SINCE 1975, THE NEW BRAUNFELS UTILITIES HAS USED THE ANNEX BUILDING FOR OFFICES. THIS SITE REMINDS US OF THE SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES THAT ONCE THRIVED AND LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR TODAY'S DOWNTOWN NEW BRAUNFELS. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 0.4 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.
• Gruene Historic District — 2.7 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 13 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 18 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.

More markers nearby

• Comal County, C.S.A. — steps away
• New Braunfels: County Seat of Comal County — steps away
• The New Braunfels Herald — steps away
• Phoenix Saloon — steps away