Robinowitz Brothers

Rosenberg was building quickly in the years the brothers opened their stores. Its first electric generating plant went up in 1912, when the town had fifty-six businesses, and it rebuilt after a severe flood in 1913. Major oilfields were developed in Fort Bend County in the early 1920s, the decade of the Avenue G buildings, and Rosenberg became a boomtown; the first hospital opened in 1922. Sulfur was found at nearby Orchard, bringing more workers. By 1945 the town counted 3,457 residents and 128 businesses, and by 1956 it had nearly doubled.

What the plaque says

Robinowitz Brothers The Robinowitz family immigrated to the United States from Russia between 1898 and 1910. Beginning a new life in Texas, the brothers worked as peddlers for several years before opening stores in Richmond, Beasley, and Rosenberg. As merchants and builders, Cecil, Abe, and Libby Robinowitz contributed to downtown Rosenberg at a significant time in the city's growth and development. Early 1920s Robinowitz buildings on Avenue G housed the Rosenberg Post Office, Libby's Dress Shop, and the R B Grocery Store. (1988)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazos Bend State Park — 17 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• The Menil Collection — 27 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 27 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Rothko Chapel — 28 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Fort Bend Telephone Company — steps away
• Rosenberg Post Office — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Rosenberg — 0.2 mi
• Trone-Ray-Lane House — 0.4 mi