Small Town Buildings As I travel across Texas evaluating and consulting on historic buildings, I see the same thing over and over: many towns have a self-esteem problem. Not on a personal level, but as a town. How a community sees itself can make or break its economic development—and in some cases, its ability to survive. Telling business owners to fill vacant buildings or creating yet another “development plan” doesn’t do much more than telling someone with low self-esteem t

There are moments when a town loses more than a building.On the night of December 19, my hometown of Winnsboro, Texas, lost a piece of its soul. Thee Hubbell House is gone.

116-year-old building ready to be restored In the heart of East Texas stood a 116-year-old bank building that had seen it all, booms, busts, and even a mid-century “modernization” that nearly erased its original charm. What was once a proud piece of small-town architecture had been covered in asbestos stucco during the 1950s, a popular upgrade at the time. Beneath that façade, however, the building’s true story was waiting to be uncovered. Uncovering the Past When the stucco