Prior to the 1902 tornado, the Glen Rose Herald newspaper was edited and printed in a stone commercial building on this site, but after the storm only rubble remained from that building. Louis Sylvanus Gresham purchased the land and the ruins and erected a limestone commercial building with three tall double-door entries as a venue for screening commercial magic lantern shows as paid public entertainment. After motion pictures supplanted magic lantern shows, this building gradually expanded at the right rear to house among other enterprises a soft-drink bottling plant, a grocery, a meat market, a general mercantile store, a hairdressing salon, and a shoe repair shop. The Somervell County Historical Society purchased the structure in 1971 and moved its museum into the old Gresham’s Magic Lantern Building, where the institution has operated since that time.