Michel's Drug Store

The drugstore opened in a young town. By 1890 Marble Falls had Methodist and Baptist churches, a gin, a gristmill, a tannery, a shoe factory, three general stores, a hotel and a weekly Gazette, with 400 to 600 people; estimates reached 1,800 by 1896. The first city officials were elected in 1907. In 1917 the town's all-male electorate chose Orphelia "Birdie" Crosby Harwood, the first woman mayor in the United States. Paved streets and electric street lights came in the late 1920s.

What the plaque says

Michel's Drug Store Ernst Gustav Michel (1865-1930), a native of Germany, and his wife, Lillie Agnes, opened a drugstore at this site in 1891. After fire destroyed the first store in 1905, Michel built a 3-story edifice here. The first floor housed the drugstore and soda fountain. The second floor was an opera house with seating for 300 people. The top floor had the family's living quarters. That structure burned in a fire that destroyed an entire city block in 1927. All four Michel children who lived to adulthood studied pharmacy. The Michel family has operated a drugstore at this location since 1891. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 8.9 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 12 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.
• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 13 mi
  A free federal refuge north of Lake Travis kept for two songbirds that need old juniper and oak, with trails at the Doeskin Ranch unit near Bertram.
• Inks Lake State Park — 13 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.

More markers nearby

• Marble Falls Factory Site — 0.3 mi
• St. Frederick Baptist Church — 0.4 mi
• Marble Falls Depot — 0.4 mi
• St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church — 0.8 mi