J. A. McDougle Home
Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
One of the many fine structures erected by C. S. Belford Lumber Co., this house was built in 1895 for grocer J. A. McDougle (d. 1939). the Victorian styling included ornate stained glass windows. The home was bought in 1901 by John R. Allen and in 1910 by W. J. Flanagan, who was county treasurer for several terms. His family lived here until Mr. and Mrs. Halsell P. Armstrong became owners (1945). The property was acquired and restored in 1969 by Neil and Joyce Adams. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1975
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1895 by the C. S. Belford Lumber Company for grocer J. A. McDougle, this ornate Victorian home with its stained-glass windows passed through a string of Georgetown owners, including a long-serving county treasurer, before being restored in 1969. It stands as one of the finer examples of the town's turn-of-the-century domestic architecture.
Why it matters
Handsome homes like this trace the prosperity and civic life of a growing Central Texas county seat in the Gilded Age.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1890s, Georgetown was growing from a frontier courthouse town into a confident Central Texas county seat. Railroads had tied Williamson County's cotton farms to wider markets. Merchants, lawyers and county officials were building the kind of homes that told passersby a family had arrived. Southwestern University had already made the town a place of learning, and the streets near the square filled with houses meant to last.
Across the nation, the Gilded Age was at its height. Mass-produced millwork, catalog trim and factory-made glass had become cheap to ship by rail. Styles once reserved for the rich were now within reach of a successful small-town merchant. A house with turned porch posts, decorative gables and colored glass was a statement of optimism about the town and the family.
Local builders turned that national taste into Texas streetscapes. The C. S. Belford Lumber Company was one of them, and it put up many of Georgetown's finer structures in these years. This house on the McDougle lot is one of them.
People & events
The story starts with a grocer. J. A. McDougle had the house built in 1895, at a time when the neighborhood grocery was the center of daily life. Families bought flour, coffee and canned goods there, and often on credit. A grocer who could commission a Victorian home with ornate stained-glass windows had clearly earned his customers' trust, and a good deal of their business.
The house did not stay in one family for long. John R. Allen bought it in 1901. In 1910 it passed to W. J. Flanagan, who served several terms as county treasurer, the official responsible for the county's money. The Flanagans stayed for decades, and their long residence ties the house to the civic life of Williamson County.
In 1945, Mr. and Mrs. Halsell P. Armstrong became the owners. By the late 1960s, many Victorian houses across America were being torn down or stripped of their trim as old-fashioned. Neil and Joyce Adams went the other way, buying and restoring the house in 1969. Their work helped earn it recognition as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1975.
Its place in the American story
Houses like this one tell a quieter American story than battles or statehouses do. Railroads, cheap lumber and factory-made ornament brought the fashions of the age to small towns across the country. A grocer in Central Texas could live in a house styled much like one in Ohio or Illinois, and the stained glass in his windows says as much about industrial America as any factory does.
The list of owners is its own kind of record. A merchant, then other local families, then a long-serving public official: that pattern shows how small-town prosperity and civic leadership overlapped. Such homes were where a county's working institutions sat down to supper.
The 1969 restoration also belongs to a national story. In the 1960s and '70s, Americans began to value their Victorian buildings again, pushed partly by the losses of urban renewal. Private owners like the Adamses saved much of what survives, one house at a time.
If you visit
Look first for the stained glass, the feature the marker singles out. On a bright day, colored windows can glow from inside the house as well as catch the light outside. Then take in the rest of the Victorian vocabulary: the trim, the rooflines, and the sense of a builder showing what his lumberyard could do.
This is almost certainly a private home, so enjoy it from the sidewalk and respect the owners' privacy. Georgetown is a good town for walking, and its older neighborhoods reward a slow loop past other homes of the same era.
Pair the visit with time around the historic courthouse square, which is lined with restored commercial buildings. It makes an easy half-day stop from Austin or a pleasant break on a drive along the I-35 corridor.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · J. A. McDougle
- · W. J. Flanagan
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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