R. Grosse and Sons

Grosse worked in a town already built of stone. The first stone houses in Mason went up by 1869, and by 1890 nearly every building in town was stone. In 1900 a fire destroyed an entire row of buildings on the north side of the square, the post office among them, and that September the town organized its first volunteer fire department. A new courthouse followed in 1909. Mason was still without a railroad: in 1923 it was the largest town in Texas without one, until highways and automobiles made the lack matter less.

What the plaque says

R. Grosse and Sons Born and educated as an architect in Germany, Richard E. Grosse (1860-1944) came to Mason County in 1882. Settling first in Plehweville (Art), he worked as a stonemason and married Louisa Carolina Von Donop in 1886. He opened a lumberyard and, upon the births of his sons, named his business "R. Grosse and Sons." Moving to Mason in 1895, Grosse continued to operate his lumber business. Many public and private buildings in the area were designed by the Grosse firm, some featuring unique utilization of local materials in elaborate architectural styles. (1988)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Mason — steps away
  A reconstructed officers' quarters on Post Oak Hill above Mason, standing where the army's stone fort was taken apart by the town that grew up below it.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 14 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.
• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area — 29 mi
  A dome of pink granite north of Fredericksburg that rises some 385 feet above Sandy Creek, creaks as it cools at night, and has drawn people for thousands of years.

More markers nearby

• Fort Mason and Camp Llano, C.S.A. — steps away
• Mason National Bank — steps away
• Hofmann Dry Goods Company — steps away
• The Commercial Bank — steps away