David Love Store
Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
South Carolina native David M. Love (1821-1892) was an early settler of Williamson County. He was engaged in farming and ranching before moving to Georgetown in the 1860s. A prominent local business leader, he had this Victorian commercial structure built for his mercantile business in the mid-1880s. Features of the building include an ornate metal façade on the second floor, square pilasters, a decorative cornice, and a restored first-floor storefront. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
South Carolina native David M. Love came to Williamson County as an early farmer and rancher before moving to Georgetown in the 1860s. A leading local merchant, he had this ornate Victorian commercial building raised in the mid-1880s for his mercantile trade. Its pressed-metal upper façade, square pilasters, and decorative cornice typify the confident storefront architecture of a growing Central Texas county seat.
Why it matters
Buildings like the Love Store document the rise of Main Street commerce in Gilded Age Texas, when settled ranchers turned to merchandising and helped anchor permanent downtowns.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · David M. Love
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Farmers State Bank Building
Georgetown, TX
Growing out of the Merchants and Farmers Bank of 1898, Farmers State Bank incorporated in 1905 and by 1912 had completed this Classical Revival building on Georgetown's commercial square. Its temple-front facade, Corinthian columns, and dentiled pediment expressed the confidence of a small-town bank in the boom years before World War I. Williamson County bought the building in 1967 and used it for county offices for decades.
Emzy Taylor
Georgetown, TX
Arkansas-born Emzy Taylor clerked in his father's Georgetown store before serving as a Confederate captain in the Civil War's Red River campaign, marrying while on furlough in 1864. Returning home after the war, he took over the family business and became a driving force in the town's growth, helping launch its first college, national bank, regional railroad, and water utility. He took special pride in founding and leading the city's volunteer fire department.
M.B. Lockett Building
Georgetown, TX
Standing on the footprint of an 1840s store, this building rose after the Civil War and by the 1880s housed the mercantile firm of Rucker & Montgomery. In 1889 Ohio-born merchant Melville Beveridge Lockett opened his own store here, and in 1896 he reshaped it into the exuberant Victorian design still visible today. Cast iron columns, a pressed-metal parapet, and a turreted corner bay mark it as a showpiece of a booming county-seat business district.
Williamson County Courthouse
Georgetown, TX
Completed in 1911, this is the fifth courthouse to serve Williamson County, designed by the noted Austin firm of Charles H. Page & Bro. A stately Classical Revival building, it carries giant Ionic columns and a copper dome crowned with a four-faced clock and a statue of Justice. Though some detailing was stripped away in the 1960s, it still commands the center of Georgetown's town square.