BEC
Hill Country Day Trip Lewis Bros. Store Lives On STORY BY LINDSEY BERTRAND | PHOTOS BY LAUREN SALAZAR IT’S EASY TO IMAGINE THE LEWIS BROS. STORE IN PIPE CREEK AS A garage and filling station. The sounds of cars and trucks whizzing by on Highway 16 drift through the open front door, and the orange Gulf gas signs look right at home, if a little rusty around the edges. Today’s patrons don’t stop for a fill-up, though. They come for antiques, architectural pieces, boutique clothing, metal art, vintage lighting, original art, even fresh eggs and local honey. Some just want to see inside the nearly century-old structure. “People stop to take photos of the building all the time,” says shopkeeper Pat Sullivan. “They either remember it from their childhood, or they drive by often and are just curious.” Built as a garage in the 1920s, though no one is sure of the exact year, the store predates Bandera Electric Cooperative by at least 10 years. The Lewis family bought the building in 1929 and lived in what had been the garage bays while they remodeled it into a grocery store. The family, including brothers Milton and Walter, ran the store and added a gas pump as automobile traffic between Pipe Creek and Bandera picked up. When BEC connected Lewis Bros. Store to electricity in 1943, it was the fifth member account in District 1, and it served as a grocer and anchor in the Pipe Creek community. By providing food and other necessities, the Lewis family’s commitment to residents mirrored the cooperative principle of concern for community for decades.
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Texas Co-op Power BEC March 2019
PAT SULLIVAN AN D LAUR IE GIBSON WE LCOME V ISITOR S TO THE STO RE.
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