M. M. Long's Livery Stable & Opera House
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
When M. M. Long and his family moved here from Bastrop in the early 1860s, the first floor served as the livery stable for Long’s Austin to Burnet and Lampasas stage line. On the second floor, Long ran an opera house which was used for public meetings and concerts, In 1866 a Federal courtroom and in 1900 an Odd Fellows hall occupied the second story. Through the years a publishing company, a saloon and a billiard parlor, tobacco, drug, jewelry, and dry goods stores have used this centrally located building. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When M. M. Long moved his family from Bastrop in the early 1860s, this building's ground floor served as the livery stable for his Austin-to-Burnet-and-Lampasas stage line, while an opera house upstairs hosted concerts and public meetings. The second floor also held a Federal courtroom in 1866 and an Odd Fellows hall by 1900. Over the years the centrally located building housed a publisher, a saloon and billiard parlor, and a run of shops.
Why it matters
A single downtown building that was stable, theater, and courtroom captures how frontier towns packed many public functions under one roof as they matured.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · M. M. Long
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Texas Highway Department
Austin, TX
Created on April 4, 1917, as automobiles were revolutionizing travel and farmers demanded all-weather roads to market, the Texas Highway Department set out to organize a statewide system backed by federal matching funds. A one-cent gas tax after 1923 and New Deal relief funds during the Depression fueled massive road building, and in 1933 the agency completed this headquarters building. From here DeWitt C. Greer led the department for decades; the building was later named in his honor.
Texas State Capitol
Austin, TX
After an earlier 1850s limestone statehouse proved structurally unsound and then burned in 1881, Texas financed a grand replacement by setting aside three million acres of public land. Detroit architect E. E. Myers won a national competition, and from 1882 crews raised a Renaissance Revival capitol of Texas Sunset Red granite hauled in on rail lines built for the job. When the Goddess of Liberty was hoisted atop the dome in 1888, the building stood more than fourteen feet taller than the U.S. Capitol.
O. Henry Hall
Austin, TX
Built between 1877 and 1881 as a federal courthouse and post office, this building was raised by noted early Texas builder Abner Cook in a restrained, symmetrical style inspired by Italian Renaissance palaces. It later became famous as the site of the federal trial of William Sidney Porter — the short-story writer known as O. Henry — and after decades of government use it was given to the University of Texas System, which restored it and named it in his honor.
Sixth Street
Austin, TX
Laid out as Pecan Street on Edwin Waller's 1839 plan for the new capital, this thoroughfare drew a diverse population and grew into a commercial heart of nineteenth-century Austin. Its flat ground and safe distance from the flood-prone Colorado River made it ideal for shops, saloons, stables, and lumber yards, often with owners living above their businesses. Renamed Sixth Street in 1884, it accumulated Austin's largest concentration of Victorian commercial architecture, and restoration efforts begun in the 1960s revived the district.