Dominating the west side of the courthouse square, this building is architecturally the most important commercial building in Mason. The two-story facade, three lots in width, has one of the largest expanses of pressed metalwork in the region. The ground floor wood-framed display windows and doors and the upper-level metal front are composed of elements from the mail-order catalog of Mesker Brothers of St. Louis. The second story is divided into three bays of ornamental panels by pairs of small Tuscan columns. Above are a grand entablature ornamented with a foliated frieze, a cornice, and a gabled central pediment with the F. Hoerster name and date, flanked by two semicircular pediments with fan motifs. The metal awning over the sidewalk and two skylights on the roof appear to be Mesker models too.
Cattleman Fritz Hoerster, born in Prussia in 1841, settled in Mason County in 1856. After service in the Confederacy and many years of ranching, he moved into Mason and built this mercantile structure, which contained the carriage business of his wife’s Leifeste family. They had a large elevator installed that could raise and lower entire carriages from the lower level to the upper floor.