Merritt Building

A Waymarking entry on the building says Jesse F. Merritt, a liquor wholesaler, fired the brick for his Sunny South Saloon at his own kiln. He sold the property, bought it back and lost it in 1890. James Cameron leased it around 1900, and his drugstore stayed nearly fifty years. Professionals kept offices upstairs. Stucco was later stripped from the front, and the storefront and canopy were altered. The entry credits the late-1980s rehabilitation with helping start the downtown revival, and lists the building in the Henderson Commercial Historic District, which Wikipedia says reached the National Register in 1995.

What the plaque says

Merritt Building One of the first lots occupied after the town of Henderson was founded in 1848, this site has been a cornerstone in the city's downtown development. Jesse F. Merritt bought the lot in 1883 and had this brick building constructed for his Sunny South Saloon. Built by local brickmasons Dave and Logan Howard, it has been home to several enterprises over the years, including saloons, offices, and a local social club. It was the location for Cameron's Drug Store for fifty years. The Merritt Building remains important to Henderson's downtown area. (1988)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 10 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• East Texas Oil Museum — 16 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.
• Tex Ritter Museum and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame — 27 mi
  Carthage's country music museum, with Tex Ritter's boots, guitars and saddles in a room styled like a movie theater, and exhibits on other Texas stars, Jim Reeves among them.

More markers nearby

• The 1860 Henderson Fire — steps away
• Henderson — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Henderson — steps away
• Judge William Wright Morris — steps away