William M. Owen House Complex
Round Rock, Williamson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The earliest structure in this complex is the one-story stone building, constructed about 1853. It originally housed a mercantile store and the first permanent post office for Round Rock, both operated by Thomas C. Oatts, the town's first postmaster. Built on the pioneer road from Austin to Georgetown, it was part of Round Rock's early development. The two-story home was built about 1870 and for many years was the residence of Dr. William M. Owen, a prominent local physician and businessman. Both buildings reflect the style of other area structures of the 19th century. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The oldest building in this Round Rock complex is a one-story stone structure raised around 1853 that held the town's first mercantile store and first permanent post office, both run by Thomas C. Oatts, Round Rock's first postmaster. It stood on the pioneer road linking Austin and Georgetown, a lifeline of early Central Texas travel and trade. A two-story home added about 1870 later served as the residence of Dr. William M. Owen, a well-known local physician and businessman.
Why it matters
A single site that gave a frontier town its store, its mail, and its doctor shows how commerce, communication, and community grew up together along America's early roads.
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Related people
- · Thomas C. Oatts
- · Dr. William M. Owen
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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This table-shaped stone in the middle of Brushy Creek long guided Native travelers and early settlers to an important low-water wagon crossing, where century-old wheel ruts can still be seen in the creek bed. The rocky ford drew a settlement whose "Brushy Creek" post office opened in 1851; at postmaster Thomas C. Oatts's urging it was renamed "Round Rock" in 1854 for the very stone. The town kept the name when it moved to meet the railroad a mile east in 1877.
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Settlement gathered here in the late 1830s, and by mid-century former Austin mayor Jacob Harrell was selling lots near the Stagecoach Road crossing at Brushy Creek. A post office opened in 1851, and the community soon renamed itself Round Rock for a distinctive limestone ford; immigration from several states and Sweden doubled its population in the 1850s. When the railroad built a new townsite to the east in 1876, "New Town" quickly eclipsed the old settlement, and Round Rock briefly rivaled Austin as a commercial hub before growing, a century later, into one of the nation's fastest-expanding cities.
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