Time travel to Kerrville in 1872

Two pages from the June - July 1872 'Day Book' of  Faltin & Schreiner.
Click on any image to enlarge.

Would you care to time travel with me this week?

Recently, I was given an historical item which offers a very rare glimpse of life in Kerrville in 1872. It’s not a photo, however. I don’t have many photos of Kerrville or Kerr County that I can confirm to be that old.

It’s actually an old bookkeeping book.

It’s tall and narrow, measuring about 11.75 inches tall, by 5.125 inches wide. It has a pasteboard cover and pages which time has turned the color of coffee with lots of cream. The pages are ruled with blue and red lines for bookkeeping. Its binding has cracked, though the pages are still collected in signatures bound with string. It looks common, and was probably not very expensive when first purchased.

It has on its title page, in ornate handwritten script “Day Book No. 3, 1872.”  It has entries from parts of June and July, 1872.

Gentle Reader, though I graduated many (many) years ago from the school of business at the University, I’d never heard of a Day Book. I had to look it up, because this type of bookkeeping predated me by almost a century.

Charles Schreiner,
probably 1880s

After some detective work – involving deciphering the accounting ‘codes’ in the book – I determined which merchant kept his records in this book: it was Charles Schreiner.

In the summer of 1872, Schreiner’s downtown Kerrville store was less than three years old, and still went by its original name: Faltin & Schreiner. While the store was showing promise, Schreiner had yet to experience the phenomenal success which would be part of his life later.

Remember, Kerrville was a very small village in 1872. There were no paved roads. The railroad, which provided economic growth to our county, did not arrive until 1887. There was no city government until 1889. None of oldest buildings in downtown Kerrville had been built, not Schreiner’s store or mansion; not the Masonic Building (now home to Turtle Creek Olives and Vines); not the Weston Building (now home to Francisco’s Restaurant); not the Guthrie Building (now home to the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country).

The oldest building in downtown Kerrville is the Favorite Saloon Building (now home to Busted Sandal Brewing Company), and it was built in 1874.

The site of Faltin & Schreiner was about where the Charles and Magdalena Schreiner Mansion stands today. It was a small wooden building measuring 16x18 feet. Faltin & Schreiner opened their store on Christmas Eve, 1869, but purchased the land on which the store stood on February 12, 1870. The business partners did not own the land on which that first store stood -- at least for 49 days.

So, you may be asking, what can some scribbled notes about daily transactions at a small country store tell us about life in Kerrville in 1872?

The book records some very important details about life here: What Faltin & Schreiner had in their store; who their customers were; what they bought; and, in conjunction with the Federal census of 1870, the occupations of those customers.

Faltin & Schreiner, by Harold Bugbee

Joseph Tivy was a frequent customer. He was Kerrville’s first mayor, and Tivy High School is named in his honor. I recognize the names of other customers: Christian Dietert; B. F. Denton; Caspar Real; Joshua Brown; Jones Glenn; R. H. Burney; William Wharton; George Hollimon; James Monroe Starkey; Dominique Michon; and many others. 

There were lots of names in the book which were new to me. These are interesting, too, because they reveal new stories I’ve never heard – especially when compared to the 1870 census.

I’ll write a column later which will give more detail about the items sold at Faltin & Schreiner. The variety of items is fascinating.

I will, however, tell you the item most mentioned in the sales record. While it was not a big ticket item, it was very popular with the customers of Faltin & Schreiner.

Over and over again I see this sale recorded: “1 drink. 10 cents.” Looking at you, Captain Tivy. (Though he seldom only bought one.)

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who collects historical items from Kerrville and Kerr County. If you have something you’d care to share with him, it would make him happy. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times November 18, 2023.

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