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Cigar Vault in Buda recognized for preservation of 100-year-old building

The Cigar Vault in Buda was honored by the city's Historic Preservation Committee for what the business has done to preserve the building.

BUDA, Texas — Downtown Buda is a place with 100 years of history. One of the businesses that now lives in a building on Main Street is doing its best to preserve its history.

"Dates vary, but somewhere around 1918 or 1920, somewhere around there," said Brian Foley, the general manager of the Cigar Vault in Buda, "100-year-old building, yeah."

The building was once home to the town's bank. The vault still in the back now doubles as a cigar humidor.

"So you're stepping into a 100-year-old bank vault," he said. "That's the original safe from the early 1920s that came out. It is the same width as the door, so they built the vault around the safe so that didn't allow would-be bank robbers to tie a rope around it and pull it out with their horses." 

The shelves that now hold cigars were once safety deposit boxes. A restoration is keeping history alive.

"It's just going back in time and you don't get to do that nowadays," Foley said. "That's the heart and soul. Yeah, the vault is absolutely amazing." 

That's why the city's Historic Preservation Committee presented them with an award and recognition, recognizing the work that Foley and the owner, Jeff Beal, have done to preserve the past.

"We were honored. It was great, yeah, truly honored," he said. 

They're preserving not just the building but things that were in it.

"The grandfather clock in the corner is another good example. That's the original clock that the bank used to have right here," he said. 

But the "unofficial community center of Buda," as Foley said, is also preserving the stories. 

"Rebecca Bradley, the flapper bandit, a UT coed, 1926, robbed this bank," he explained, sitting next to a framed version of the story. "Posing as a reporter for the school newspaper [she] then came in and robbed them, and almost got away with it. She robbed the bank because tuition was too high in 1926." 

They're keeping 100 years of history alive and growing.

"People come in because they're curious. It's an old building, but once they come inside and see everything, you can see this transformation come over them, or this wonderment. It's almost like adults becoming kids in front of their eyes," he said. 

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