Railroad Produce Warehouse

This was built as a cold cellar. The National Register nomination of 1979 describes a limestone building 38 by 80 feet, banked into a hill, with walls 21 inches thick and few windows, so that cold would stay in. Water evaporating on the lower walls and a tunnel to a nearby creek helped control the temperature. The nomination says the building's age is unknown and guesses it dates from the arrival of the tracks in 1879. It says W. W. Pearce owned it from 1903 to 1909 and added refrigeration, a cooling tower and a concrete floor.

What the plaque says

Railroad Produce Warehouse Built in 1904 by William Pearce to provide storage space for a wholesale grocery company, this building was part of a larger industrial complex. A number of buildings were constructed along nearby railroad lines, including an ice plant and bottling works, grist and planing mills, and a passenger and freight depot. Thick stone walls and spring water channeled through the basement of the structure helped to cool produce. This site is a reminder of the role industry and the railroad played in the economic development of Georgetown. (1997) Incise on base: Preserved for the future by Karalei Nunn and Tom Nichols

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Williamson County Courthouse — steps away
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Inner Space Cavern — 2.2 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.
• The Round Rock — 8.7 mi
  A table-shaped stone in Brushy Creek gave Round Rock its name in 1854; the Chisholm Trail crossed the creek near it, and Old Town stayed behind when the railroad pulled the town east.
• Mount Bonnell — 23 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.

More markers nearby

• Emzy Taylor — steps away
• Chief Justice John Edward Hickman — steps away
• Judge Greenleaf Fisk — steps away
• In Memory of Robert Jones Rivers — steps away