HistoricSiteMarkers
Early RepublicReconstruction & Gilded Age

Shafer Saddlery

Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas

Marker Inscription

On site of cabin used (1848) as first county courthouse. This frontier saddlery, erected 1870 of hand-cut limestone by John H. Shafer, had living quarters upstairs. Since 1872 occupants have been attorneys, a newspaper, and many other tenants. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1971

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

This hand-cut limestone building, raised in 1870 by John H. Shafer, stands where a cabin served as the county's first courthouse back in 1848. Shafer worked leather here as a frontier saddlery, living with his family in quarters upstairs. In the years since, its rooms have housed attorneys, a newspaper, and a long parade of other tenants.

Why it matters

It links the rough beginnings of county government to the everyday frontier trades—like saddle-making—that kept a horse-powered West moving.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · John H. Shafer

Themes & tags

Industry & InventionFrontier HistoryLandmark

Nearby & related markers

Williamson County Sun

Georgetown, TX

Founded by Jessie E. Cooper in 1877, the Williamson County Sun became the county's oldest newspaper and, over its first century, a civic force in its own right—championing Georgetown's first railroad, a retirement home, and low-cost housing. A line of editors, including the founder's son, carried it forward until Donald and Clara Scarbrough took ownership in 1948. Long a weekly, the Sun grew to publish twice a week in 1974.

C.A.D. Clamp

Georgetown, TX

Born in Prussian Thorn—today Torun, Poland—Christian Augustus Daniel Clamp came to Texas in 1846 and settled in Georgetown in 1851. A skilled carpenter and cabinetmaker, he became one of the young town's foremost builders, raising homes, stores, churches, and public buildings, and ran a furniture business on this block for years. An active Presbyterian and civic leader, he also served as mayor from 1878 to 1880.

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.

H.C. Craig Building

Georgetown, TX

Hugh Clifford Craig opened a furniture store in this ornate Victorian building when it was new in 1903, though he sold the business to a rival just three years later while keeping the building itself. It later housed the Davis Furniture Company and then a long-running variety store, its iron columns and pressed-metal ornament outlasting each tenant. The structure is a fine survivor of Georgetown's turn-of-the-century commercial row.