Site of Mundine Hotel

The fire began before dawn on Monday, June 4, 1888, and only two of the thirteen people asleep in the hotel got out. The dead were Isaac Crown, a Rockdale businessman; Pemberton Pierce, a traveling salesman; the barber J. F. Briscoe, his wife and their two children, who were to have moved to Taylor that day; and Mrs. W. A. Brooks and her four children. Dr. Brooks and D. M. Oldham survived. The Brooks and Briscoe families were buried in the Odd Fellows cemetery after services at the Baptist church, Crown in the Jewish cemetery.

What the plaque says

Site of Mundine Hotel The Mundine Hotel stood on this site from its construction in 1880 until its destruction by fire in 1888. Completed six years after Rockdale incorporated along the International & Great Northern rail line, the hotel was built near the depot to accommodate rail travelers. John Mundine of Lexington, Texas, built the inn, and it opened in 1881 under the management of Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Brooks. The fire that destroyed the three-story structure also killed 11 of its 13 occupants. Never rebuilt, the Mundine Hotel remains a part of Rockdale's history and its significant association with the railroad. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 14 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.
• Calvert — 30 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.

More markers nearby

• Railroads in Rockdale — steps away
• City of Rockdale — steps away
• George Sessions Perry — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Rockdale — steps away