1718-1720 Water Street

Constructed no later than winter of 1928, this building at the corner of Water and H Streets is currently vacant.  It has had two different house numbers in its history--1718 and 1720 Water.
A commercial building with attached living quarters, the roofline of a small house can be seen.

In January 1928, Arthur K. Hammond and his wife sold this plot of land to J. R. Jennings. The first newspaper record of a building on this lot is in March 1928, when Sparkman's Kerrville Gulf Filling Station is mentioned in a newspaper ad.  By May 1929, Florence Robinson, a widow, had taken over the business, which she called Sparkman Place.
The 1930 census shows that she rented the property at 1720 Water Street for $20 a month. Living with her were two sons, Bowman and Guy, as well as a boarder, James Trainer, proprietor of a filling station. This no doubt was the filling station she operated.
In October the same year the Kerrville Fish and Oyster Market opened here. The fish market may have been an adjunct to the gas station.
In September 1932 she bought the land that lay under her business from J. R. Jennings. The property was sold three years later and had several owners afterwards.

In early October, 1934, a young boy by the name of Gerald Eric Vallier, whose family then lived here, dashed into Water Street into the path of a moving car.  He died of his injuries a few days later and was buried on his fourth birthday, October 10, 1934. Within about a year his parents moved to a house on Broadway.
Over the next three decades the property was offered for rent or sale several times, sometimes as a store and filling station with attached living quarters, and sometimes as a five room house with sleeping porch. It appears that during most of this time, the business operated as a corner store and filling station with the family living behind the store.

In 1965 Roy Pruneda made additions to the building and opened the Acapulco Restaurant, later known as El Azteca.  The restaurant closed about 1993 and was followed by a series of other Mexican restaurants.

Its most recent use was the Bandidos Motorcycle Clubhouse, 2005-2006.


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