Sarrazin Store

The chickens on this plaque rode a railroad that was only three years old when the Sarrazins moved in. The Taylor, Bastrop and Houston line, sold during construction to the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, came through Fayetteville in 1887 on land given by the merchant Hugo Zapp; a depot had gone up in 1885 in expectation. At the railroad's height six passenger trains served the town, three toward Houston and three toward La Grange. The depot closed in 1959. The store itself is a gable-fronted two-part block, with the shop below and living space for the owners above.

What the plaque says

Sarrazin Store German brothers Edward and Leopold Sarrazin, who opened a mercantile store in 1875, moved their business to this building in 1890. They sold groceries, dry goods, and hardware in the front part of the building and had an office in the back. Feed, farm equipment, buggies, and wagons were kept in the rear warehouse. Chickens, raised in coops in the yard, were shipped by rail to Houston. After Leopold died, Edward bought the store, which Edward, Jr. inherited upon his father's death in 1925. It continued as a thriving business, employing as many as 18 clerks, until 1967. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Round Top and Festival Hill — 11 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.
• Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites — 12 mi
  A shared tomb on the Colorado River bluff for the men of the Dawson fight and the black bean lottery, beside the ruins of a German stonemason's spring-fed brewery.
• St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (Ammannsville) — 14 mi
  A wooden Carpenter Gothic church built in 1919 after storm and fire took two before it, its dusty-rose interior painted by an artist whose name was lost for decades.
• Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church (Dubina) — 15 mi
  The church of Texas's first Czech settlement, under a sky-blue painted ceiling that was whitewashed in the 1950s and brought back from faint traces by its own parishioners.

More markers nearby

• Phillip James Shaver — steps away
• Fayetteville — steps away
• Fayetteville SPJST — steps away
• Site of Svrcek Garage — steps away