Constructed in 1873, the two-story native limestone Gentry and Shelton Building was the first masonry building on the courthouse square and is the oldest extant building within the Stephenville Downtown Historic District. The first-floor façade features a three-bay central concave entryway surrounded by four metal plate-glass windows and topped by a narrow band of transom windows. The second floor has three arched bays filled with one-over-one wood windows topped with transoms. Atop the arched windows are distinctive decorative limestone eyebrows with central keystones. The east elevation along S. Graham Ave. features four of the same arched windows on the second floor. On the first floor, at the northeast corner of the building, a single wood door with a transom above faces west. On the southeast corner is a single one-over-one window. The east elevation also has four rectangular openings at ground level that serve to ventilate this building’s rare basement. White plaster or stucco once covered all or part of this building and it was removed in 1993. The ground floor of this building was typically occupied by a mercantile store or restaurant, while the 
second floor has served as offices and lodge meeting space. 

Between 1930 and 1949, a rectangular addition built of concrete block was added to the rear, or south elevation of the  Gentry and Shelton Building. Built to house an auto repair garage, the addition has a double-vehicle wood-framed  garage bay facing west toward Graham St., filled with a corrugated metal door. Its façade also features a wood  pedestrian door with an enclosed transom on the building’s north end. A cut through the curb on the sidewalk still  exists for use of the garage door. The south side of the garage has two small wood double-hung windows. The building  has a flat roof that drains into two downspouts on the south side. The north elevation of this building abuts the Gentry  and Shelton Building. The 1949 Sanborn map depicts a doorway cut through the south wall of the Gentry and Shelton  Building to provide access to the garage.