Mickelborough Building

The 1874 rule shaped all of downtown, not just this lot. SAH Archipedia, the Society of Architectural Historians' guide, says Navasota's replacement buildings went up in stone and brick, with stringcourses, cornices and arched window lintels, and that rubble-stone walls like these were often stuccoed. In 1980 Navasota was one of the first five Texas towns in the new National Main Street program, and on November 30, 1982 the blocks bounded by La Salle, Holland, Ninth and Brule streets joined the National Register as the Navasota Commercial Historic District, significant for commerce and architecture.

What the plaque says

Mickelborough Building Eliza Johnson (d. 1876) had this building constructed in 1874 following a fire which destroyed several structures on the block. It was made of limestone rubble to comply with a city ordinance requiring all new construction to include fireproof materials. August Horst (d. 1920), a local investor, bought the property in 1877 and sold it two years later to his wife's brothers, E. P. and J. H. Mickelborough. Members of their families owned it until 1929. The building has housed a saloon, grocery, confectionary, ice cream parlor, and offices for attorneys and dentists. (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 — 5.9 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 — 9.1 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
• Lewis J. Wilson Building — steps away
• La Bahia Trail — steps away
• Saint Paul's Episcopal Church — 0.2 mi