They helped Kerrville grow.
They met at a bridge party in the early 1950s, Gordon Monroe and Gene Lehmann, and over the course of their careers, they changed Kerrville. Friday morning they were honored by the city at the dedication of a park which will bear their name, the Lehmann and Monroe Park. The pair not only donated the land, but also funds with which to develop the park.
Newcomers might not realize what these two accomplished, and, even after going over my notes and reading several pages of information, I’m not sure I know all that they accomplished. But, Gentle Reader, some of your neighbors live in Kerrville today because of the efforts of these two men.
When I was a boy, Kerrville was much different than it is today. It was small, and, if we’re frank with each other, it was isolated. Most of the community’s businesses were in the “L” made by Earl Garrett and Water Streets; residences filled up most of the larger streets, like Sidney Baker and Main Street. There was nothing, really, beyond the Five Points area heading toward Ingram, nothing much north of the stadium and the high school on Sidney Baker, and nothing but farms and ranches south of the river on State Highway 16. Kerrville then was not much larger than Bandera is today. It was small. Many had a direct interest in keeping it that way.
When Gordon and Gene met, Gene was running his family’s store, Lehmann’s, a chain which was a 5c & 10c type store; the Kerrville Lehmann’s became Winn’s when I was a child; it was where the surgical annex of the hospital is today on the north side of Water Street in the 700 block. Gordon was managing the Burton Insurance Agency. Their first real estate venture together was to purchase some apartments on Lois Street, and though they developed other projects independently, such as the Lehmann family’s Inn of the Hills, or the Monroe interest in the Heart o’ the Hills Bowling Alley, now part of the Family Sports Center, they soon formed a very successful land development team.
Their innovation to development in this area was a simple document, something called a Contract for Deed, which allowed a buyer to make a small down payment (sometimes as low as $100), and then start making payments on the land. According to a family member, no one was offering this to land buyers – the only other avenue to purchase land was to make a very large down payment (say 20-40%) and then make payments, if your credit was deemed good enough.
This approach was very successful for the partnership, and, after having good success on their first few ventures, they decided to ‘go out on a limb,’ and purchase the former Louis Schreiner Ranch south of the city in about 1967. This purchase was divided into parts we’d all recognize today: Rio Robles, Glen Oaks, Loma Vista, Loyal Valley, and Kerrville South Ranches. This land included the white Louis Schreiner mansion which later became the headquarters for L. D. Brinkman’s operations here, the land which now holds Albertson’s, the Wells-Fargo bank tower, and, I believe, the land where the new Sid Peterson Memorial Hospital is being built.
I might be wrong, but the pair might have purchased this ranch (of about 3300 acres) from the family of Robert Hays, the husband of Louise Hays, for whom the adjoining park is named.
And, even as they were busy changing the map of Kerrville, they still had time to serve our community: Monroe served as our mayor (hosting First Lady Lady Bird Johnson at the dedication of our Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library); Lehmann served as president of the Kerrville school board. They also served our community on numerous committees and task forces.
It’s funny to me how different generations view people. By the time I was old enough to realize there were other businesses in town besides the grocery store and a certain print shop, the partnership of Gene Lehmann and Gordon Monroe was already quite successful. I distinctly remember a maroon Rolls-Royce with an Aggie bumper sticker plastered on the paint – the paint! – above its chrome rear fender, which I took as a funny Aggie joke. I also remember taking swimming lessons at this absolutely huge house overlooking the city, where the pool was lined with cut stones.
But there was a time when an older generation thought the two had little chance of success. There is an old story I’ve heard several times of a golf game where one of the members of a founding family of Kerrville, a family whose success had depended upon keeping Kerrville small, made the remark that “it looks like the Go-Go boys [Lehmann and Monroe] are going to make it after all.”
Yep, you might say that.
Until next week, all the best.
Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who remembers looking south of the river and seeing no businesses at all.
