Steele Store-Makemson Hotel Building
Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built about 1870 by M.E. Steele on the site of an early log hotel, this is one of Georgetown's oldest commercial structures. During Steele's ownership it housed a mercantile and a bank. Emma Dickman Makemson later operated a hotel here from the early 1900s until 1924. Exhibiting influences of the Italianate style, the building features a truncated roof, corner entry, ornate frieze below the roofline, and finely crafted stonework. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built around 1870 by M.E. Steele on the site of an early log hotel, this is one of Georgetown's oldest commercial buildings. Under Steele it held a mercantile store and a bank, and in the early 1900s Emma Dickman Makemson ran a hotel here until 1924. Its Italianate touches—a truncated roof, corner entry, and finely worked stone—mark the ambition of the growing town square.
Why it matters
It shows how a single early building could shelter commerce, banking, and hospitality as a frontier settlement matured into a county seat.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When this building went up around 1870, Georgetown was a young county seat finding its commercial footing in the years after the Civil War. The Reconstruction and Gilded Age decades were a time of rapid town-building across Texas, as log cabins and rough frontier structures gave way to permanent buildings of cut stone.
This very site captures that transition. A commercial building rose here on the ground where an early log hotel had stood — the frontier past literally built over by the more settled town taking its place. To raise one of Georgetown's oldest commercial structures was to bet on the town's future.
Around the courthouse square, merchants, bankers, and hoteliers were the engine of that future. A single well-built structure could hold several of these enterprises across its life, and this one did.
People & events
The building was raised by M.E. Steele, who put it to work in the way an early town needed most. Under his ownership it housed both a mercantile store — where settlers bought the goods they could not make themselves — and a bank, the institution that let a growing community lend, save, and invest. Commerce and capital under one roof was exactly what a maturing county seat required.
In the early years of the twentieth century, the building took on a new life as a hotel. Emma Dickman Makemson operated it as a hotel from that period until 1924, giving travelers and newcomers a place to stay on the square. Her long tenure is why the building carries her name alongside Steele's.
Together their stories trace the arc of the place: from the goods and money that built a town, to the hospitality that welcomed the people who kept it growing.
Its place in the American story
The story of American towns is written in buildings like this one — structures that outlived their first purpose and were adapted, again and again, to whatever the community needed next. Store, bank, hotel: each use marks a stage in a settlement's climb from frontier outpost to established county seat.
Its Italianate styling connects it to a wave of nineteenth-century American architecture, when even modest commercial buildings reached for the ornamental dignity of that fashion. The truncated roof, the corner entry that greeted the street, the ornate frieze below the roofline, and the finely crafted stonework all show a town investing care in its everyday buildings.
Recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, the building endures as a rare survivor of Georgetown's earliest commercial era — proof of how much history a single storefront can hold.
If you visit
Study the stonework. This is one of Georgetown's oldest commercial buildings, and the quality of the cut stone rewards a close look — evidence of the craftsmanship a growing town was willing to pay for.
Find the corner entry and the ornate frieze running below the roofline. These are the Italianate touches that set the building apart, small flourishes of ambition on a working commercial structure. As you look, try to read its layered life into the walls: mercantile counter, bank, hotel rooms above.
Set on Georgetown's historic square, it makes a natural stop on a walking tour of the town's early buildings. Take it slowly, side by side with its neighbors, and let it show you how a frontier settlement grew into a place travelers chose to stay.
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
- · Emma Dickman Makemson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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