Lewis J. Wilson Building

The plaque follows the merchant; the building is worth its own look. SAH Archipedia, the Society of Architectural Historians' guide, lists it at 102 West Washington as a two-story, four-bay brick front with corbeled details picked out in contrasting colors, and says its interior is largely intact. The Grimes County TXGenWeb history calls it the first brick commercial building in Navasota. It went up in 1871, three years before a fire pushed the town to require fireproof materials, so its brick was a choice rather than a rule.

What the plaque says

Lewis J. Wilson Building A native of Connecticut, Lewis J. Wilson (1832-1895) moved with his parents to Grimes County in 1851. His father Samuel opened a general merchandise business in Anderson. Lewis managed the store until 1861 when he left to serve in the Civil War. After the war he returned to Anderson and opened a mercantile store in partnership with W. R. Howell and John Quincy Yarborough. They completed construction of this brick building in 1871 for a second establishment. Wilson was the sole proprietor by 1881 and continued to manage the business until his death. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Navasota — steps away
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 5.8 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 5.8 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 9.2 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.

More markers nearby

• The Giesel House — steps away
• Mickelborough Building — steps away
• La Bahia Trail — steps away
• Saint Paul's Episcopal Church — 0.3 mi