In March 1974, Houston was a very different place. The Oilers were still the city’s football team. Elvis played the rodeo, which was then held at the Astrodome, home to the ’Stros and affectionately embraced as the eighth wonder of the world. The population was just under two million people.

And two months earlier, Super Bowl VII was played in Rice Stadium, just down the road from where a guy called Karl Kilian would found Brazos Bookstore, which officially opened its doors that spring. Kilian imagined a different kind of bookshop, one with a heavy emphasis on literature and the visual arts. For years afterward, it would be known as the place to find the complete works of Jane Austen or John Updike, along with heavy tomes on classical architecture or Impressionist paintings. And Kilian himself would come to be known as the founder and champion of Houston’s literary scene.

Fifty years later, as Brazos celebrates half a century, the echoes of Kilian’s beginnings are still within the walls of 2421 Bissonnet Street. But as Houston has changed, so has Brazos. And this isn’t your grandma’s bookstore anymore.

“It’s a careful balance,” says Brazos general manager Randi Null, the 34-year-old Houstonian who leads the store. “I’m cognizant every day of the store’s history and I know this space means so much to so many. I never want to take that away.”

Times change, however, and so does the clientele. When Brazos began, it became an anchor for a certain kind of reader, one devoted to great literary works. Browsing the shelves in the 1970s and ’80s, you’d be hard-pressed to find a Danielle Steel novel among the likes of Mailer and Joyce. If you were looking for an exploration of how Michelangelo transformed art, Brazos was your space.

The story of Brazos is the story of changing times. Over these 50 years, Houston’s economy has morphed; energy is still top dog, but aerospace, life sciences and biotech, and advanced manufacturing have helped the city’s economic engine diversity. Those industries have brought with them a younger and highly educated workforce, many coming to Houston from other states and countries.

Today, these younger readers are finding the store, millennials and Gen Zers rubbing shoulders with the baby boomers who knew Kilian personally and have watched the bookstore’s evolution.

“In 2005 or ’06, Karl was offered this terrific position with the Menil,” says Matt Henneman, current co-owner of Brazos and chair of the store’s board. “It was a great opportunity for him, but he couldn’t find a buyer for the store. Keep in mind, this was the era of big-box stores, and Amazon jumped in and disrupted everything.”

No one, says Henneman, wanted to see the store’s demise.

“A group of 14 investors came together and said, let’s all put a little in, and run it as a co-op, almost like a nonprofit. If it breaks even, we’ll keep going,” he says.

The group ownership kept the store afloat, and today, there are 27 total owners. A board of six oversees the running of the store, in concert with the store’s general manager and staff.

A casual observer might expect a tug of war between what Brazos was and what it is today, with an old guard wanting to keep things the same against an onslaught of young folks. That hasn’t been the experience at all, says Null. She points out that one of the things those millennials and Gen Zers have in common with their boomer and Gen X predecessors is a desire for community. Brazos provides that.

“We have a romance book club now, where 20-somethings are talking about books with 75-year-olds,” she says. “That never happened before.”

There are a few things that never happened before Brazos. There wasn’t an Inprint, for one. The organization celebrating Houston’s literary arts, which today offers a host of author readings and classes and provides grants to aspiring writers, was founded in 1983; Kilian was one of its creators. Brazos today remains a partner with the group, promoting its events and selling books at them. Gulf Coast, the literary and fine arts journal published semiannually by the University of Houston’s English Department, began its life in 1986. Brazos has, over the years, hosted the Gulf Coast Reading Series. These events provide the magazine’s writers, who are a blend of students in UH writing programs and writers from farther afield, a space to read their work to audiences.

“Brazos really helped create a literary scene in Houston, which was always Karl’s goal,” Henneman says.

In the store’s early days, Kilian was the sole employee, ordering titles, selling them, closing the store at night. But he believed in his vision for the bookstore and Houston as a literary hub. Under Kilian’s tenure, Brazos welcomed Pulitzer Prize–winning authors like Larry McMurtry, presidents Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, and bestselling authors Tom Wolfe and Anne Rice. Kilian also championed small presses and publishers, which remains part of the fabric of the store today, where titles such as Taming the Divine Heron from Deep Vellum Publishing and Bite Your Friends: Stories of the Body Militant by Europa Editions sit prominently on display.

Kilian worked for the Menil Collection until his health faltered. He died in 2020 at the age of 77.

His legacy is in good hands, those of Null and the part-owners, as well as people like Keaton Patterson, one of Brazos’s book buyers. He says his approach to securing titles is part exploring how similar books have sold in the past and part searching for things outside the mainstream.

“I’m always on the lookout for the unusual, the strange, the out of the ordinary,” he says. “We balance what we think customers will like and what our customer base wants.”

One title Patterson points to is Bluebeard’s Castle by Anna Biller. He’d been a fan of Biller’s first novel, and he calls this one “a feminist satire of Gothic romance and fairy tales with over-the-top melodrama.”

The staff sold 60 copies, mostly by hand selling them to customers.

“We have the most incredible staff,” says Henneman, who points to the team’s love of books, and their desire to help people find just the right title.

Finding the right title means that the store has altered since its earlier days. Fiction now accounts for nearly half of what’s sold. Null says they’ve increased their mind and body section, based on customers seeking titles in the genre. There’s a craft section now, which nods to younger people taking up knitting, embroidering, and jewelry making. A craft night is under consideration. A food section, including both cookbooks and writing about food, nods to Houston’s never-ending love of flavor. (The event the store hosted in February for The Hebridean Baker by Coinneach MacLeod was so packed, the title became one of the store’s bestsellers for that month, with more than 100 copies sold.) The store’s music section has books on everyone from Dolly Parton to DJ Screw.

“Our children’s section is a huge part of our store now,” Null says. “And we’ve set it up so that the room grows with you, as kids grow from board books to middle grades and beyond.”

She notes they’ll often give children advanced reader copies of books and have them write kid-friendly reviews, a touch that adds to Brazos’s community feel.

Null wants people to know that the bookstore welcomes everyone, and the odds that there will be something for every taste are high. Book clubs and events allow readers to connect with each other and authors who run the gamut from emerging to superstars. And if Brazos doesn’t have it, they’ll either order it or, in some cases, show support for fellow indie bookstores like Murder by the Book or Kindred Stories by sending shoppers there.

Of all the things that have changed since Brazos first opened its doors, one remains eternal: this is a place for readers to find fellow readers. Null and her team want to be sure the store is a no-judgment zone.

“You don’t have to read serious books to be a serious reader,” Null says. “You can read really broadly and shout your guilty pleasures from the rooftop.”