{"nrhp_refnum":"80004083","name":"Roper Hotel","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"TX 281 and 3rd St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Marble Falls","county":"Burnet County","state":"TX","lat":30.571317084000043,"lon":-98.27554042599996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-01-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Commerce","Transportation","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story, hip-roofed brick hotel with a double front gallery at Hwy. 281 and 3rd Street in Marble Falls, Burnet County, Texas, built around 1888 by George Calvin and Elizabeth Huckenhull Roper.","why_significant":"The hotel was one of the earliest in Marble Falls, a town promoted in the 1870s and 80s as a manufacturing center. It served as a weekend stopover for Texas governors and politicians, a stage stop, and headquarters for traveling salesmen. It later operated as the elegant Francis House, and was in continuous use from 1888 to at least 1963.","narrative":"Built around 1888 by George Calvin and Elizabeth Huckenhull Roper, this two-story brick hotel sits at Hwy. 281 and 3rd Street in Marble Falls. It has a hip roof, a full-length double front gallery, and walls of locally made buff brick, with granite sills and architraves from nearby quarries. Side and rear trim was covered in stained mastic to imitate brownstone. The interior has a central hall, six rooms on the ground floor and twelve upstairs. Marble Falls was then being developed as a manufacturing center, and the hotel became one of its earliest. It hosted Texas governors and politicians, served as a stage stop, and housed traveling salesmen who displayed their wares there. From 1926 it passed through new owners and became Central Hotel and then Francis House, run by the Smith family until 1963. Townspeople kept calling it the Roper Hotel. Later alterations removed chimneys and changed the roof and interior, and new owners planned a restoration for commercial use.","period_of_significance":"1888","architect_builder":"George Calvin and Elizabeth Huckenhull Roper (builders/original owners)","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed as altered, in fair condition and unoccupied; owners were planning a restoration for commercial use and had applied for a grant.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:19.740643-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/19/9714/40971419/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/80004083.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80004083/ce43e8cdae-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80004083/ce43e8cdae-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 4.0","author":"Larry D. Moore","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roper_hotel_2010.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Larry D. Moore</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roper_hotel_2010.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40971419","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roper_Hotel","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14711287"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/burnet-county/roper-hotel-80004083/"}