Pruitt's Fabrics

Picture from August 2018 by author.
Well, classes are back in session again, and I can tell from activity...as of early September, the most popular page of the month was the Memorial Student Center page.

Like Dixie Chicken on the other side of campus, Pruitt's Fabrics (it dropped the "Fabrics" on the main sign some years ago, probably as late as 2011 but no earlier than 2008) has just been "there" at 318 George Bush Drive (or 318 Jersey, originally) for years, with its coral-green tile giving away its age. Sadly, Pruitt's has all appearances of being on its last legs, whether that's actually true or not. The store is open by appointment only, the building is for lease, and the website has been offline for a few years now. Pruitt's Fabrics claims to be founded in 1946, but we know in 1956 it was a few spaces down. However, by 1959, Pruitt's Fabrics (or "Pruitt's Fabric Shoppe" or "Pruitt's Fabric & Beauty Shop" as it was also known) settled in its current location, and here we are sixty years later.

Brazos CAD says that the building was built in 1957, which aligns with advertising (no records for 318 Jersey before Pruitt's) and puts Pruitt's as the first and only building in the space.

The building is right next to what is currently Good Bull BBQ but from that post, it has changed hands multiple times, whereas Pruitt's has been constant.

Editor's Note: Check out some recent updates posted around the site! Former NAPA Auto Parts is getting a new tenant. Wolfe Nursery has a link to a history I wrote of the company. Did you know it was owned by Pier 1 Imports for a time? Speaking of Pier 1, Texas Avenue Crossing lost another tenant, World Market. Texas Avenue Crossing is rumored to get a Sprouts, and I do have some pictures of the pre-redevelopment center (after Academy closed). That will be added another time...Kettle got a minor update (it might just return to 24 hours again, someday...), and finally the At Home article got a minor update. All updates have been re-worked to be a little easier on the eyes, too.

Good Bull BBQ

You can see the remnants of where an awning once hung, last seen in the "Cocina" days. (Picture by author, 8/21)
When I did the post on the late Southgate Subway that closed after nearly 30 years, you could see the doors to Good Bull BBQ to the right of it. Unlike Subway, this spot (326 George Bush Drive, née 326 Jersey) has been a revolving door of restaurants over the years, but going back further hasn't always been restaurants.

The oldest record I can find is 1969 with the location being the Southside Barber Shop "under new management", with a legacy of hair cutting continuing into the early 1980s.

In 1978, it was the Mop Shop, and mentioned in the paper because someone had stolen their barber pole. It was here until the very early 1980s.

"How About Lurl's" was here in 1982-1983 according to tax records (a second location of a hair styling shop in Bryan). This is the last known hair cutting place at the spot before it transitioned to restaurant space.

In the spring of 1984, a new pizzeria called DoubleDave's Pizzaworks opened. A second location on Northgate soon followed. By the time DoubleDave's closed this particular location around 2000 (presumably relocating to Rock Prairie Road), DoubleDave's wasn't quite a small one-location operation anymore. DoubleDave's long stay at this storefront was the longest time that any single restaurant operated here and survived the 1990s name change to George Bush Drive.

Mi Cocina Restaurant (also known as Mi Cocina II, as their first restaurant was located in Bryan) opened in 2000 and was very popular for a time; by 2006 it had opened two additional locations in College Station. Unfortunately, at some point, it was sued by a similarly-named restaurant (which had no locations in College Station) and the restaurants became Polly's Cocina (except the original Bryan location, which went to different ownership). After the spring 2011 semester, the now-named Polly's Cocina Restaurant closed.

Coco Loco, which opened in summer 2011, I never actually went to, but I do remember my dad bringing home some leftover breakfast items including bacon and tortillas due to some work-related early morning meetings there, but in 2013 beef contaminated with the rare E. coli strain O157:H7 was undercooked and sent two young boys to the hospital. The restaurant was shut down by the health department for investigation and clean-up (and of course, the local news media followed it closely). During this saga, a health department official ate a taco at a televised press conference to demonstrate that the restaurant was safe to eat at, but that put off friends and families of the victims (especially as the family in question was facing a huge financial burden in hospital bills), and was forced to apologize. It would not have made much of a difference; the idea was to not throw Coco Loco under the bus, but it ended up closing in 2014.

La Botana moved in after Coco Loco's demise. This second location of a Bryan-based restaurant (still in operation as of this writing) opened in early 2015 but closed in 2017.

Good Bull BBQ opened in fall 2017 and closed in May 2021. Both TexAgs and Yelp attribute management issues to its closure. However, as of this writing, new management has reopened the restaurant.

Brazos CAD groups it with the same lot where Subway is, and therefore, like that building, I'll put that this building was built in the 1940s until new proof shows otherwise.

UPDATE 11-09-2021: The Good Bull BBQ revival ended up lasting just less than two months. Not too long after Good Bull BBQ reopened, their walk-in cooler failed, and the new owner did not fix it (allegedly believing it was the landlord's duty), leaving town soon after. Have the days of restaurants at 326 George Bush come to an end?
UPDATE 02-10-2024: In 2022 it became part of "FNL Nutrition", which didn't long and occupied the address of the former Subway next door.

C.C. Creations + Red Oak Sportswear

I'm not fond using Google Earth aerials but this is the best way to show the buildings.

Moving down Holleman from the old Valero, which as of this writing is basically a crater, 112-114 Holleman is the subject of today's post, with C.C. Creations at the spot for 30 years, more or less, but it's a bit more complicated than that. This is the way I've best understood it so if there's any inaccuracy, be sure to tell me (my email's in the side column).

The earliest site plan I can find for the building is from 1988 (BCAD says the buildings were built in 1989) shows 112 Holleman as a stand-alone business to be occupied by C.C. Creations (at the time at 205 North Main in Bryan). By 1993, Red Oak Sportswear was built at 114 Holleman, a larger building directly next to 112 Holleman Drive.

Based on what resources I have and what I can put together, including listings from the sales taxpayer database, Red Oak Sportswear was founded as a subsidiary of C.C. Creations, and became a business proper in 1993 following the purchase of C.C. Creations by Clute, Texas-based Brazos Sportswear Inc. in 1992.

114 Holleman. (Picture by author, December 2020).

What I do know is that during most of the 1990s, 114 Holleman was occupied by both C.C. Creations and Red Oak Sportswear, leaving 112 Holleman "vacant" although all indications are C.C. Creations still used the building and its name was listed as the address.

In 1997, however, Brazos Sportswear was sold to Sun Sportswear out of Batavia, Ohio. Sun took Brazos' name (despite still based out of Ohio) but it had a much worse financial record, and within two years, filed for bankruptcy. By that time, C.C. Creations and Red Oak were back in local ownership.

After the ownership by Brazos Sportswear ended, C.C. Creations officially moved into 112 Holleman again while Red Oak Sportswear took over the 114 Holleman entirely, possibly preparing for the "divorce" of the two companies. In 2005, Red Oak was sold to Knights Apparel, while around early 2007, C.C. Creations moved out and to a smaller location at Southwest Crossing.

112 Holleman. (Picture by author, December 2020).

Both warehouses became empty when Knights Apparel shut down Red Oak in early 2008. However, by November 2012, C.C. Creations moved back to their old stomping grounds, this time in Red Oak's old space. Meanwhile, the 112 space was replaced by Maroon U, a new subsidiary of C.C. Creations, offering Aggie branded apparel with higher-priced labels, and between both warehouses, the The Warehouse at C.C. Creations, which functionally replaces outdoor tent sales C.C. Creations used to have.

This is the configuration that currently exists today. I should also mention that C.C. Creations had a trophy business at the strip mall at the northwest corner of Harvey Mitchell Parkway and Southwood which was merged back into the main business.

Former Subway on Southgate

I think I can see remnants of BOTH logos! (Picture by author, 8/20)

Yesterday, I discovered that the Subway on George Bush Drive (Southgate, at Montclair) closed for good, so this is hot off the presses as far as this blog is concerned. I don't know the backstory of 330 George Bush (originally 330 Jersey), but I try my best here. From what I can find, in 1956, it was the home of Pruitt's Fabrics (moved down a few spaces fairly early on, although dropped "Fabrics" in recent years). By the early 1960s it was Fugate-Davidson Printers.

This is from the 1963 A&M Consol vs. Del Valle Football Program on Project HOLD. I just cleaned it up a bit.
An oral history transcript mentions that Fugate shut down that location and moved "back to the house" in 1970 before selling out in 1973, this house presumably being at or near where Fish Richard's was located.

In 1988, it became Beef 'N Brew (which did not seem to have been related to "Beef & Brew", where The Tap is today, nearly a decade earlier). By late 1991, it was Subway, and Subway it would be for a number of years afterward. The (many) Subway stores around town are operated by Centex Subway, and from working at the stores at one time, most of them do marginal business. The COVID-19 problems (especially related to students on campus and around town) wiped out a lot of business, with the Southgate store being hit particularly hard, and after a temporary closure, was made permanent.

I can't find most of the tenant history, with only the notes where Beef N Brew's application suggesting it was part of Rother's (next door) at one time (and indeed, the property lines for the business include the former Rother's next door and what is now Good Bull BBQ).

For the purposes of blog organization, I'm going to assume the building dates back to the 1940s but I don't have any hard proof of that.

UPDATE 05-24-2021: Subway opened in fall 1991, shortly after Beef 'N Brew (which was not related to the former business at The Tap) officially closed earlier that year. This has been appended in the main article.
UPDATE 02-10-2024: In 2022 it became "FNL Nutrition" (sold juices, smoothies, etc.) which also occupied the Good Bull BBQ space next door. It ended up closing by fall 2023.

One-o-One Grove

The Amtrak platforms STILL stand on the other side of the railroad, but 101 Grove is totally gone.

Even fairly late into the planning process of this page, I had considered this making this a multi-subject post to cover the other buildings demolished at the same time, including 100 George Bush apartments, Equity Real Estate (which was built around 1997-ish), the Unitarian Universalist church, and 101 Grove. Of these, I only had real interest in covering 101 Grove and Equity Real Estate, except I lack any pictures of the latter and my experiences with renting an apartment with Equity were less than stellar.

One of the reasons I'm bringing up this is so I could also bring up LoTrak, which is one of the "hidden sub-pages" of the blog. Had it been constructed, 101 Grove might have died that much sooner.

101 Grove first opened as Jazzercise Exercise Studio in 1984, a warehouse-like building (I seem to remember it having gray metal siding), and I believe they held this into around 1999 until the Northgate McDonald's was reconstructed, without a basement. At this point, a huge Golden Arches sign was erected on the building, facing Wellborn, and the McDonald's Training Center was born, which also seemed to have been the main headquarters for the local stores. Unfortunately, in 2002, the local McDonald's franchise retired, and so went the McDonald's sign. A few years later, the building was completely renovated inside and out, with stucco, windows, awnings, and a mural on the north side. Initially named "One-o-One Grove", by 2007, it was the home of Ellis Custom Homes, but a few other tenants were there as well, including Larsen Insurance, and (as of summer 2007), P. Dallas Construction Co., though it was largely a one-man landscaping operation.

By 2019, the property had been bought by TxDOT and leveled, with the parking lot stub cut off and everything neatly removed. I returned in August 2020 to take these pictures, but as you can see, there's nothing left!

"Nothing remains...but memories!"

Southgate Village Apartments

Here's an Eagle ad from December 1971, subsidized even back then.
Originally part of the Luther Street and Wellborn Road article to undergo major changes as of this writing (accounting for the huge new apartment building replacing the entire block), the Southgate Village Apartments were built in 1970 and is a HUD subsidized apartment (even going into foreclosure in early 2012).

Street View image, 134 Luther Street

Redmond Terrace Shopping Center / Texas Avenue Crossing

Author's picture from August 2019. The overcast makes the buildings appear shadowed.
Among the retail establishments off of Texas Avenue is Texas Avenue Crossing (a name not seen on signage, by the way) is also the only strip center for miles around with rooftop parking. If you have lived in College Station for more than six months, you've probably been here: it has (as of this writing) a Panda Express, Cold Stone, World Market, Bed Bath & Beyond, Jason's Deli, and DoubleDave's. Of course, it wasn't always like that, and prior to 2003 (roughly), it was a completely different center. Opening in the 1960s at Jersey and Texas Avenue on a dairy farm, Redmond Terrace Shopping Center was the first strip center in College Station and featured a variety of stores, including a Ben Franklin five and ten, Brookshire Brothers, a post office, and Gibson's. All of these were housed under a continuous "squiggly roof" (not unlike the defunct discount store The Treasury). Here's one of the few photos I have of the original configuration, from a photo of a photo.

Gibson's, of course, was the main anchor. When this article was originally published in 2014, no Wikpedia article existed, but now it does. The Dallas stores even included full supermarkets in theirs. While the Gibson's here never contained such a thing, it did include a garden center and pharmacy, the latter indicated by this December 1971 ad from our very own The Eagle. It may have even had a snack bar.

Get "Monoply" for the kids!

From what I've read, though, Gibson's was a dump (I've heard someone tell me it smelled like tires). If we fast-forward, things started to change at Redmond Terrace...as stores changed, the squiggly roof went away, but only partially, leaving the center very disjointed looking. Academy would demolish or extensively renovate the Gibson's space. The Brookshire Brothers space was replaced with Piggly Wiggly early on (it was not very large at all, much smaller than Navasota's or Hearne's Brookshire Brothers), though Brookshire Brothers did get another chance in College Station when it opened a new store on George Bush Drive West many years later. The post office was replaced with Joe's Used Books.

Compared to the top picture, this is how it's supposed to look color-wise. (Picture by author, 8/19)
Jason's Deli (a Stacy's Furniture for a time, by address) would be on the far right of the center. Other stores included Burdett & Son's and Loupot's, as well as a mattress/furniture liquidator. Here's a picture of Burdett & Son's, in which you can see the original figuration as well.

Burdett & Son was here from 1997 to 2002, as says their website. Copy Corner is off to the right.

At the corner of George Bush and Texas was a Shell gas station with a Zip'N convenience store, but it was extremely small (or am I just remembering this wrong?). This went first with little more than some remains in a raised section of concrete to show that something was here.

Here's the directory listings for what the center was like as Redmond Terrace.

1400 - Stand-alone Zip'N gas station (Shell) at the corner of George Bush (Jersey) and Texas Avenue. May have replaced an older gas station, only 1,000 square feet. This went first with little more than some remains in a raised section of concrete to show that something was here.
1710 George Bush Drive - Not part of the 1400 block, but Joe's Books in the late 1990s was the closest to the George Bush side.
1402 - Brown's Shoe Fit from sometime in the 1980s to the early 2000s
1404 - Copy Corner
1404A - Jason's Deli. I remember how Jason's Deli was one of the last buildings to be torn down, and the first to be rebuilt.
1406 - Piggly Wiggly in 1976, and later Burdett & Sons by 1997 (to 2002)
1408 - The directory for 1998 lists "Vincent AC" or something like that, but I only remember a mattress liquidator being here.
1410 - AR Photography
1418 - Gibson's Discount Center in 1976 and Academy by the mid-1980s. By the 1990s it was rebadged as 1420, possibly due to an expansion in the late 1980s.
1422 - Loupot's Book Store. This moved to the center at Holleman and Texas Avenue and is a Salata today. This appears to be originally part of Gibson's, and originally had a south entrance (unknown if it was re-sealed later) for a garden center.

In 2001, Redmond Terrace would lose its largest anchor when Academy announced it would move out to the bypass (the new store opened February 2002, a store now closed and replaced by an even larger one), and shortly thereafter it was announced that the entire shopping center would be wrecked for a new center: Texas Avenue Crossing. While one portion was saved and rehabbed (Mattress Giant and Pier One Imports, and I think this was where Jason's Deli originally was), the rest was demolished and built anew, featuring a mostly stable line-up of tenants.

On top of Bed Bath & Beyond to Jason's Deli is that rooftop parking area, but it's never been very full. An elevator takes you back near BB&B.

Over at the Shell spot, a new plaza was built with Panda Express (new to the market), Complete Nutrition (formerly "Bath Junkie"), James Avery Craftsman (originally something else?), and Cold Stone Creamery (new to the market).

TAC remains rather popular, having brought new retailers to the market and a popular lunch spot with inexpensive restaurants (Jason's Deli, particularly, remains a popular after-church spot).

Here's the current directory.

1400 - Panda Express in the strip center that replaced the Shell.
1404 - Formerly Bath Junkie from 2005 to 2009, later Complete Nutrition. Bath Junkie may or may not have been one of the first to go in here. (1402 not used)
1406 - James Avery jewelry store. May or may not have replaced another ~2005 tenant.
1408 - Cold Stone Creamery.
1410 - DoubleDave's Pizzaworks at the north end of the center.
1414 - European Wax Center (1412 not used), originally Urban Salon.
1416 - Charming Charlie. For some reason I remember this coming after the other stores, but I can't remember if it replaced anything. It was one of the first of that chain open (the chain launched in 2004, and this was only store #5 out of nearly 400). In August 2019, the store and the 260 other stores in the chain (at the time) announced it would go out of business.
1418 - Formerly Mattress Giant and later transformed into another MattressFirm location (it happened not long after they had built a store at the former Blockbuster at Holleman)
1424 - Pier 1 Imports, moved from space near the mall. This announced closing in early 2020 shortly before Pier 1 filed for bankruptcy protection. 1420 and 1422 not used.
1430 - Bed Bath & Beyond. 1424-1428 not used.
1440 - Pine Boutique. For years Ritz Camera & Image, closed in 2012, one of the last ones to close. 1432-1438 not used.
1446 - Palm Beach Tan (originally Darque Tan for years)
1450 - Total Wine & More opened in 2022. Formerly World Market. 1448 not used.
1460 - Jason's Deli. 1452-1458 not used.

UPDATE 09-15-2021: World Market began going out of business sales in December 2020, putting the screws to yet another business in the center. Also updated Bath Junkie's dates and implied that Brookshire Bros. would be covered in the future.
UPDATE 02-17-2023: Added Total Wine & More.
UPDATE 02-10-2024: Some updates to report that have not been integrated to the page. DoubleDave's announced on TexAgs that the George Bush/Texas location would close May 1, 2023. Also, in late July 2023 Bed Bath & Beyond closed with the bankruptcy of the chain and was replaced with Burlington (formerly known as Burlington Coat Factory, but like At Home the store opened too late for CS to see the "original" name). I still do have a few pictures of the strip center pre-remodel but that will have to wait.

Redtex Center

Picture from author, August 2019

Originally reported as part of the Aggieland Inn article when, according to a CSTX New Development list (no longer available, at least not very easy to find) had lots 317, 319, and 321 Redmond Drive abandon their public right of ways. These used to be the "Travel Kleen" car wash and the Summit station, which were both demolished circa 2007. I thought they were part of the redevelopment, but it wasn't.

In 2013, a strip mall was put up on the site, with the area's first Sleep Number by Select Comfort and Aspen Dental, with a location of St. Joseph Express being included a year later (I believe briefly it had the pre-CHI St. Joseph logo) but it closed down by 2018. This had the address of 1530 Texas Avenue, along with the name Redtex Center (REDmond Drive and TEXas Avenue), though I don't believe this was always part of the development.


This is what it used to look like according to Loopnet, though the listing has since removed.
I've stopped at the Summit at least once (it was quite run-down) but never at the Travel Kleen--I wasn't aware there was a car wash even there (probably why they closed). Unknown to when either were built, but in the mid-1990s, this Summit was originally a Shell with a Zip'N convenience store. While a number of the older Shells did not make the conversion in 2003-2004 and had to convert to Summit stores, namely the two rural Shell stations profiled elsewhere on this site, the Shell here converted earlier. I'm not sure when this conversion took place. The Shell was at 321 Redmond (the same as Summit), and it was a Zip'N in 1989 (store #102) though it had been removed by 1993. The Shell signage remained up until at least by 1995.

UPDATE 11-11-2022: "Shawarma Factory" opened in 2022 in suite 100 (former St. Joe's site). [Restaurants] and [Texas Avenue] added to post.

The Lost Buildings of Luther Street and Wellborn Road

At one time, the block where Berkeley House is featured a fine dining establishment in a converted house (from Center Magazine)

This is one of the posts I've had for years on the blog and despite tons of rewrites still may come off as disjointed, and needs a bit of a proper introduction.

Today, the entire block features a large apartment building, Berkeley House (opened fall 2018), a student-oriented complex. It is impossible to take a good photo of it, as it comes up to the street, and I can't take a photo from the other side, as Wellborn has a curb next to it. As a result, Google Street View will have to suffice, though it is currently not updated yet, only showing the old thrift store that was there.

When I was a kid growing up in the mid-1990s, this corner featured a small convenience store that sold Chinese food, perhaps some of the first (Americanized) Chinese food I've ever had (that or Confucius Chinese Cuisine). Later on it became a thrift store but my father had an old 1940s map of the campus and surrounding area that listed the building as "Hrdlicka Café". What was this café, and how did it become a thrift store?

Over the years, through research and other help, these answers and more were revealed.

In 1919, a house at what would be 801 Wellborn Road was built by Ed Hrdlicka ("1" on the map below). Eventually, the house passed on to Ed's daughter Marilyn, and her husband Jack Fugate. In the late 1970s, the house was converted into a restaurant—Fish Richards Half-Century House. Fish Richard's menu featured seafood, lamb, and prime rib along with a selection of wines.

Apparently the reason that Fish Richard's closed was due to a divorce by the couple that owned it (some ads in the final days of Fish Richard's discussed a new future location), but the building burned to the ground in 1988, and the 801 Wellborn address went unused for years, until the construction of Berkeley House.

#2 on the map was 803 Wellborn, and wrecked sometime in the late 1990s, likely around the time of the demise of Piknik Pantry (below). This was the home of Fugate's printing press and laundromat businesses and later home to Fish Richards Bakery, the bakery operation of Fish Richard's, which sold a variety of baked goods all day, every day (except Sunday afternoons). I read somewhere (but lost the source) that this was the original supplier for Subway when it came into town in the early 1980s. Ad can be found here.

#3 on the map was 805 Wellborn. This was the likely site of the eponymous Hrdlicka Café from 1920 to the mid-1940s, a student beer joint, dancing hall, and storefront grocery store. "Uncle Ed" leased the store shortly before his death in the early 1950s and by 1957 it was operated by Ed Krolczyk, who tried to make barbecue from "any kind of meat" and claimed to make a great barbecued raccoon.

By the 1960s it was replaced with a convenience store, the Piknik Pantry with Amoco gas (certainly by 1972), though 1980 phone book says "811 Old College Road", indicating not only a rename later (likely holding over from the days when Wellborn and Old College were one and the same, as Wellborn did not extend to Villa Maria but instead curved to Old College) but a renumbering (or just an error). Piknik Pantry & Chinese Food (it sold Chinese food later, and research even shows that an old Chinese restaurant at 3030 E. 29th, Sing Lee, had the same owner) mets its demise in the late 1990s and was quickly replaced with 2nd Chance Resale Shop, operated by Twin City Mission. Based on Chamber of Commerce newspaper clippings, this probably first opened in late 1997 with Piknik Pantry meeting its demise shortly prior. Sometime in the mid-2010s (2016 I believe) it moved to a new location and in 2017, it was torn down for Berkeley House. According to a comment I received in 2015, it featured an all-you-can-eat buffet on Sundays (back in the '80s) for just four or five dollars. The same comment references the gas pumps as well.

There were two more businesses in that block that I haven't labeled.

At 809 Old College (location unknown) there was Astraptes, an "adult disco" nightclub. There's rumors on forums (where it was misspelled as "Astropates", among others) that this was the closest thing to a gay bar College Station had, and according to Houston LGBT History (link sort-of NSFW), it was, mentioning after closure it reopened in 1983 (if briefly--and it's the only Google result that spells the name correctly).

This one is from the 1980 phone book published by GTE.
There was a fifth business, the Peanut Gallery, at 813 Old College, and that seems to be based on what was there on aerials, that it was the metal building directly next to Piknik Pantry. By the 21st century this was just storage for the resale shop. Today, of course, everything described in this post is long-gone. The thrift store and everything around was leveled in 2017 for the aforementioned Berkeley House apartments. Officially it uses 805 Wellborn but some references use 801 Wellborn, site of the Hrdlicka/Fugate homestead.

Extensive update done August 2019, new name April 2020

College Station Conference Center

From KBTX, which most definitely did not take it off from the city's Flickr account

1300 George Bush Drive

Yesterday (from when this post was made), College Station Conference Center was shut down...basically condemned due to concerns that the roof would collapse. And to me, that may be "well, it was old and needed to be torn down anyway for a more modern building", but to me it was kind of special.

For starters, it had the first permanent building off campus for the CSISD, holding first through 12th grade, built in ~1949. The high school would move out in the 1950s or 1960s and again in the 1970s (the latter building will be explored in a new post coming soon). It also had a green triangular overhang and a newer very 1980s wing built in front of it (which was there at the opening of the Conference Center in 1982), plus it was one of the few areas to use the "old" College Station logo, which has been excised practically everywhere else. It used to be on the water tanks, even in the pool at Southwood. Additionally, in the 1949 wing, it had wooden floors (carpeted) which was great: it gave the floor a nice spongy, comfortable feeling not found in newer buildings (the last major wood-floor building on campus, for instance, was Special Services Building). And more importantly, there I was volunteering at Project HOLD, which sadly eliminated its full time job position not too long after I worked here.


In 2010, I tried to get a volunteer job there, as I had done last year. Regrettably, they could not accept me, so I did the next thing: create my own archives. Do my own research. And publish what I found in an easy to view, easy to access format. This website that you're looking at, Brazos Buildings & Businesses, hosting on csroadsandretail.blogspot.com or possibly carbon-izer.com, is the result of that.

Here's another picture of the Conference Center (the newer wing), from the same Flickr page as the image on the top of the page came from. As you can see, it's solidly early 1980s. I do miss those hexagonal tiles, though.


When I originally published this post, I included a hand-drawn map of the building as I remembered it. Turns out the city had their own floorplan, which I saved since the original link is dead. I wasn't too far off the mark:


Anyway, in late 2012 or early 2013 it was announced that the building would not reopen, and instead it was demolished for College View Alternative School, hosting both Venture and Timber Academy.

Updated Nov/15 to merge updates and update something else.

Southgate Chevron

I snapped this picture from the bus, taken sometime around 2013. The Reveille's sign can't be seen from this angle.
This building, home to Texas FilmWorks since late 2023, was for decades a gas station, originally opened in the 1960s as the Southside Gulf Service (300 Jersey, later 300 George Bush Drive), and converted to a convenience store (Reveille's) sometime around the late 1980s (that's what Brazos CAD suggests) with the Chevron name being bestowed in the early 1990s due to a merger. In 2011, I got the below picture that shows the Gulf station and the surrounding area (due to the city reorganizing the Project HOLD server from which I got it from, I can't find the original link and who that is) circa 1985.


Click for larger size/higher resolution.

It's great seeing the George Bush (er, Jersey) stoplight as it was...the "old style" of College Station stoplights (before they were all replaced or upgraded), complete with the old railroad crossing (a cantilever railroad crossing...but where's the crossing gate?), and all those trees, too: this must have been before the area around Olsen Field was developed, and a time when you could probably still see the I-GN right of way on both sides.

Somewhere on Project HOLD there's a picture of the gas station at night, though I can't link directly to it because PH keeps breaking the links. Later on, it updated once to the newer 2005 design (didn't roll out fully until the late 2000s), and has always been Reveille's (convenience store) at least since the mid-1990s (if not further back). In early 2017, it was de-branded as "K.D. Timmons Co. Inc." (a local fuel supplier and the only one of its kind, though it kept the Chevron colors), and by July 2018 permanently closed, remaining abandoned for the next five years or so.

UPDATE 02-25-2019: Rewrite incorporating 2018 update, new title
UPDATE 01-04-2024: More extensive rewrite and adding current tenant.

H-E-B College Station

Author's picture of 1900 Texas Avenue South from June 2019
This H-E-B store opened as the FIRST full-line store in the Bryan-College Station area (as opposed to a Pantry store) and it replaced the H-E-B Pantry Foods across Holleman. The store opened in spring 2002 around the time that the H-E-B Pantry stores in Houston were being replaced at a rapid rate, and while I had been in a "real" H-E-B before, the now-defunct Valley Mills/Dutton store in Waco (that's a link to my other site, Carbon-izer), the H-E-B here blew it out of the water, offering everything the Pantry had (except for the nice ambience) and adding a real bakery (with bolillos, which were a favorite when visiting the Waco store), a tortilleria, a pharmacy, a floral department, seafood, and a deli.
Up until 2015, the store's décor and layout remained largely the same, with some changes have gone on within H-E-B in the past decade. Originally, they had a video game section with a display in the middle that had TVs playing the Super Smash Bros. Melee trailer (hey, it was early 2002), and you could buy a portable PSOne there. This was gutted for more of the "general merchandise" selection they have today. Unfortunately, it was one of the earlier departments scrapped when it became clear what customer's buying habits were, though it was for the better (H-E-B's merchandising is not quite as sharp these days). The sushi-making kiosk and "Showtime" were added later during later reconfigurations, and at some point in the early 2010s, H-E-B moved away from plates in the deli (though there wasn't much besides dried-out fried chicken and potato wedges) in favor of cold "grab-and-go" items (and later, "Meal Simple" kits). In the front, there were what appeared to be large sheds (they were later removed to accommodate more garden supplies), and there was also a Washington Mutual bank inside (which may or not have been the first bank there). Fortunately, H-E-B converted it to an IBC bank (removed circa 2012) before Washington Mutual collapsed completely.

The store really is big.

Until COVID, the store was 24/7 all year, which made the store extremely convenient (and not even all of the Houston area stores did that). Of course, night hours meant that the stores were cluttered with boxes and the service departments were shuttered, but it was still extremely convenient (though H-E-B wasn't the only one that stayed open that late)...though the store's popularity and tight footprint meant that parking was an issue, and that tight footprint meant that the store could never be physically expanded. The 2015 remodel mostly just replaced the existing décor ( tearing off the giant lettering on the sides of the colored walls), moved the florist to the other side of the store near the pharmacy (where the books and magazines used to be), rearranging the produce area so that it was easier to access the main store instead of winding around it, and adding the "Curbside" service to the store (using old bank space, but taking up even more parking).

Enjoy these few pictures I took at H-E-B in June 2010, taken with my old cellphone camera.

 

 

 

 

In the early days of this post, I used to have H-E-B directories from 2002 and 2005 available for download, but I figured it wasn't worth re-uploading from the Dropbox Public folder where it used to be.

The H-E-B saved part of the parking lot that El Chico used (though a few years after H-E-B opened, El Chico was torn down entirely for a bank), which was once part of a larger parking lot. Across from El Chico (on the other side of the parking lot, further down Holleman) was a shabby-looking maroon building (with cedar shake shingles if I remember right), built in the mid-1980s, holding Aggieland Printing (1801 Holleman), and later Early Bird Cleaners. Both moved to a new building in the parking lot of the H-E-B at Park Place. This was the only other retail the H-E-B had near it.

Aggieland Printing was at 1902 Texas Avenue South from 2002 to 2019 when Aggieland Printing owner John Stimson retired, and it was merged into Angonia Print and Copy of Bryan, which adopted the Aggieland Printing name, and in 2020 was replaced with a HOTWORX fitness studio. 1904 Texas Avenue South held Sew Vac City by 2005 and into the mid-2010s when it was replaced by Mattress One. They were still here in 2018 but a few years later had been replaced with F45 Training.

Smoothie King moved into 1908 Texas Avenue South in early 2010 (they used to be at the Kroger shopping center, 2416C Texas Avenue South). LA Weight Loss had previously been here since 2003 and through the 2000s (and I believe that this is where Early Bird Cleaners might have been when it first moved, didn't last long...but the drive-through presence would support that). There doesn't seem to have been a 1906 Texas Avenue South...everything has been accounted for. Below, you can see the configuration of El Chico and surrounding retail before the H-E-B was built.



UPDATE 07-19-2021: Spun off El Chico (and the car dealerships before it) into a new post. This is not the first update of this post. Major rewrites had been done in 2015 and June 2019.
UPDATE 04-05-2023: Another significant rewrite, better incorporating the adjacent retail building.