The Hub Shoe Store

Louis Kariel's name runs through Marshall's civic history. The Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities says he was elected mayor in 1935 and served until 1947. The same account tells of Adolph Katz, who fled Magdeburg, Germany, moved his family to Marshall and worked at Kariel's Hub Shoe Store; the Katz family received citizenship in 1943. The encyclopedia also records that Audrey Kariel served as mayor from 1994 to 2001. The store stood on East Austin Street in a town where Jewish merchants such as the Weisman family had already built the square's trade.

What the plaque says

The Hub Shoe Store Mose Weisman opened Hub Shoe Store on E. Austin Street in 1897. The Weisman family emigrated from Bavaria, Germany, to Syracuse, New York, and then to Marshall in the late 1840s, becoming part of the town's thriving Jewish community. Weisman's nephew, Louis W. Kariel, purchased the business in 1924. Kariel, a World War I veteran, later became Marshall's first Jewish mayor. His son, Louis W. Kariel, Jr., became the store's sole owner in 1969 and continued a tradition of service as a city leader. The Hub Shoe Store closed in 2001 and today it and its proprietors continue to be remembered for a legacy of commerce and service in the Marshall community. 175 Years of Texas Independence * 1836-2011

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Harrison County Historical Museum — steps away
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.
• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 0.4 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 0.4 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 14 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.

More markers nearby

• First Telegraph Office in Texas — steps away
• Joe Weisman and Company — steps away
• Whetstone Memorial — steps away
• Harrison County — steps away