Williamson County Courthouse

Williamson County was created on March 13, 1848, and the county seat was chosen that May under a large oak. The town was named Georgetown in July for George Washington Glasscock Sr.; a storm felled the oak in 1886. The first courthouse was a cabin. Later ones followed: a log building in 1851 costing $390, a stone one in 1857, and a stone Second Empire courthouse of 1879 by Jasper Newton Preston, demolished in 1910.

The fifth, on the square at 710 Main Street, was designed by the Austin firm of Charles H. Page and Brothers in the Beaux Arts style. It has three stories of buff brick with terra cotta and limestone trim, giant Ionic columns and a copper dome with a four-faced clock. Sources give 1910 or 1911 for its completion, and cost figures of $96,000 and $115,000. It was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1988 and is still in use.

The square forms the County Courthouse Historic District, with more than 50 Victorian-era buildings, among them the Lesesne-Stone Building of 1884 and the Fire House and Old City Hall of 1892. The Farmers State Bank Building now houses the county historical museum, and the Palace Theater of 1925 is the town's only Art Deco building. Georgetown has been a Main Street community since 1986 and holds a Red Poppy Festival each April.