The Landmark Inn State Historic Site is a historic

inn Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...

Castroville, Texas Castroville is a city in Medina County, Texas, United States. Its population was 2,680 at the 2010 census. Prior to 1893, Castroville was the first county seat of Medina County. Castroville was founded by Alsatian-Texans who were mostly Germanic ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It serves the general public as both a state historic site and a bed & breakfast with eight overnight rooms. Cesar and Hannah Monod, Swiss immigrants, arrived in

Indianola, Texas Indianola is a ghost town located on Matagorda Bay in Calhoun County, Texas, United States. The community, once the county seat of Calhoun County, is a part of the Victoria, Texas, Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 1875, the city had a populati ...

in the 1830s and settled in

above a busy crossing on the

Medina River The Medina River is located in south central Texas, United States, in the Medina Valley. It was also known as the Rio Mariano, Rio San Jose, or Rio de Bagres (Catfish river). Its source is in springs in the Edwards Plateau in northwest Bander ...

in 1849. They constructed a one-story

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

building used as a residence and a general store. They also built a detached commercial kitchen that was the working and living space for their enslaved woman, Harriet and her infant. In 1850, he bought the adjacent lot with a small house built by Alsatian immigrants Michel and Rosine Simon in 1847. John and Rowena Vance purchased Monod's property in 1853 and added an ell wing to the general store to better serve travelers on the

Old San Antonio Road The Old San Antonio Road was a historic roadway located in the U.S. states of Texas and Louisiana. Parts of it were based on traditional Native American trails. Its Texas terminus was about southeast of Eagle Pass at the Rio Grande in Maveri ...

that passed through Castroville on the way west to Eagle Pass,

El Paso El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...

, and points beyond. In 1859, the Vances added a personal residence, which was the largest in Castroville at the time, and converted Simon's small house into a wash house for use in both bathing and clothes washing. As the town grew and traffic on the road increased after the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, the Vances added a second story to the store building in 1874 to provide rooms for overnight guests. In 1854, the Vances sold the riverfront portion of his property to George L. Haass and Laurent Quintle, who built a

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...

on the river and constructed a water-powered

grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

to process grain and gin

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...

for local

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

s. Joseph and Margarethe Courand, immigrants to Texas from

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

, bought the mill in 1876 and made substantial improvements to it before his death three years later. When Joseph Jr. and Julia Courand took over from his parents, the mill was processing lumber, cotton, wheat, and over a million bushels of corn per year starting in the 1880s. The mill was the industrial center of Castroville until the 1920s. The Courands bought the Vance property in 1899 from John and Rowena's children, and converted the 1859 Vance residence into a warehouse. The Vance Hotel was rented periodically but was otherwise not maintained as it had been in the past. The Courands moved to San Antonio in 1903 but continued to manage the property and a separate general store on the town square in Castroville. Not willing to update technology in the early 1920s, the Courands posted the entire property for sale. Jordan T. Lawler bought the Courand property in 1925 and converted the mill to a hydroelectric plant to provide Castroville with electricity for the first time. In 1927, the Lawler siblings Jordan (1879-1970), Henry (1881-1967), an
Ruth
(1900-1990), along with their mother Carrie and Henry's family relocated to Castroville. Another sister, C. Genevieve Lawler (1891-1976), relocated in 1952 to Castroville with her partner Mary Ruth Lionberger (1900-1987). The historic hotel re-opened as the Landmark Inn on July 4, 1942, primarily serving military personnel between the air bases in San Antonio and Hondo. Ruth Lawler had the property designated a

Recorded Texas Historic Landmark Recorded Texas Historic Landmark (RTHL) is a designation awarded by the Texas Historical Commission for historically and architecturally significant properties in the U.S. state of Texas. RTHL is a legal designation and the highest honor the st ...

in 1965 and designated as a contributing property in the surrounding Castroville Historic District in 1970. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in its own right in 1972.

State Historic Site

In 1974, the property was donated to the

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) is a Texas state agency that oversees and protects wildlife and their habitats. In addition, the agency is responsible for managing the state's parks and historical areas. Its mission is to manage ...

(TPWD), which conducted extensive archaeological investigations and made significant repairs and improvements before opening the property to the public as a state

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been rec ...

on October 25, 1981. TPWD also had the property designated as a Texas State Antiquities Landmark in 1983. On January 1, 2008, the site was transferred from TPWD to the

Texas Historical Commission The Texas Historical Commission is an agency dedicated to historic preservation within the state of Texas. It administers the National Register of Historic Places for sites in Texas. The commission also identifies Recorded Texas Historic L ...

, which completed a two-year renovation and historic preservation project in December 2015. Tours, programs, and special events are offered regularly for visitors to the site. A new museum exhibit was installed in April 2017
Preservation Texas
and the

San Antonio Conservation Society The Conservation Society of San Antonio (legally incorporated as the San Antonio Conservation Society) is located in the Bexar County city of San Antonio in the U.S. state of Texas. Founding members were Emily Edwards, who became the organizati ...

recognized with awards in 2018 the historic preservation work accomplished.

Hotel

In addition to serving as a state historic site, the Landmark Inn is also a bed-and-breakfast-style hotel with eight rooms or overnight stays. The guest rooms are furnished with antiques and historical reproductions that are representative of the 1850s, 1880s, and 1920s, depending on the room. While the rooms have furnishings that reinforce the historical interpretation of the site, they also have modern conveniences, such as electricity, indoor plumbing, and climate control systems.

Television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

s and

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

s are not provided but free

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

is available.

References

External links

Landmark Inn State Historic Site websiteLandmark Inn Complex, ''Texas Historic Sites Atlas''
{{Authority control Commercial buildings completed in 1849 Houses completed in 1849 Hotels in Texas Protected areas of Medina County, Texas Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas Texas state historic sites Hotels established in 1853 Houses in Medina County, Texas Museums in Medina County, Texas Swiss-American culture in Texas Bed and breakfasts in Texas 1849 establishments in Texas National Register of Historic Places in Medina County, Texas Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks

State Historic Site

Hotel

See also

References

External links