Butler’s Courtyard

Andrew Dow was a tall, lanky cowboy and a good one too. There was nothing he didn’t know about ranching. He was so good that in a few short years, he was made foreman of the George Washington Butler Ranch. But his first love was to become an artist.
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Why, it was nothing to see Andy sitting high  in his saddle with his long leg hooked over the horn and he just scribbling in a tablet. He drew landscapes and buildings. He was so enthused about some of the buildings he had seen while at market up at Houston that he enrolled in a correspondence course from an eastern school to learn more about architecture.
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“You want me to do what,” he was remembered as saying that afternoon in the Butler Ranch headquarters during the spring of 1906. “That’s right, Andy,” Mister Butler smiled. “1 want you to draw me a building. Something we can build and be proud of.” “Well, I’ll be dagnabbed. A building. You want me to design you a building?”
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You should have seen ole Andy burn the midnight oil reading those mail order books. He’d be up most of the night flipping those pages and drawing on big sheets of paper. It would have to be a nice building. And, all brick. And two floors high. Yea, at least two floors. It would be an L-shaped building and it would go right on the corner of Main Street, which is Second Street today. Of course Main was nothing more than a wagon trail in those days. The wagons and a few horses would come up the trail from Webster and turn south just up at the train depot. Michigan Avenue was a small trail that crossed Main and really didn’t go much of anywhere. There was a place or two to the north on Michigan but the trail south led to the Butler Ranch-house. But the comer of Main and Michigan would be okay. It was a good spot.
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Yea, right nice.
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In the corner L would be the bank, the focal point of the whole place. The inside walls would be brick also with mahogany panels reaching aU the way to the ten-foot-high ceilings. Those teller’s cages would stretch the width of the room with a nice, long table beneath the window for the customers to use. The vault would be all brick with an ornate door, one that would show strength.