After nearly seven decades on Comanche Street, Pennington Funeral Home is leaving its longtime location as the building is set to be demolished for a future apartment complex.
Though the business will continue operating from a different location, the City of San Marcos worked to ensure the historic structure served the community right up until its demolition. Mate- rials from the building were shared with local nonprofits, while firefighters and police used the site for training exercises.
Bill Pennington, whose family has run the funeral home for three generations, shared some of its long history in the community. The business was started in 1897 by A.B. Rogers and Charles Edward Rugel as a furniture and coffin store. Pennington said in the early days, they used horse-drawn hearses and didn’t get the first motorized hearse until approximately 1915 or 1916.
