August Faltin Building

Prussian native Friedrich August Faltin (1830-1905) moved to Comfort in 1856 and purchased Theodor Goldbeck's general merchandise business at this site. Trained in his father's store, established about 1818 in Danzig, Prussia, now Gdansk, Poland, Faltin became a leading merchant of the Texas Hill Country. His 1869 partnership with Capt. Charles Schreiner of Kerrville became the nucleus of Schreiner Enterprises. By the late 1870s, his business, which included banking and post office services, had outgrown the earlier structure, and architect Alfred Giles of San Antonio designed a new building. Constructed by builder J. H. Kampmann, the Victorian Italian edifice was completed in 1879. Later operated by Faltin's sons Richard and August S., the business was sold in 1907 to their brother-in-law Dan Holekamp and his sons Otto and Edgar. That same year an addition, also designed by Giles, added second-floor space for meetings of fraternal and civic groups. In 1968 the property was sold back to the Faltin family, and the building remains a symbol of the area's early commercial growth.

Comfort, Texas · United States