Coupland, Texas, June 2017

Coupland

I found a real town, although I'm not sure how real it is.  Main street is called Hoxie St.  The business district is about two blocks long.  Over the hill is the local post office.  It has a well maintained old inn and tavern exterior and some office buildings across the street.  Up the road from the tavern is a section of railroad with a car and a small station.  All of this (except the offices) seems to be for tourists.  However, the inn was closed when I was there.

This is an addendum to my series of posts about cities and towns in Williamson County, Texas, if that wasn't obvious.

Williamson County, Texas, June 2017 - Final Note

Final Note

After visiting some actual cities and towns in the southeast of Williamson County, I went looking for what I thought would be villages.  These had names on my county map like Beyersville, Structure and Noack.  However, each of these locations had between zero and two buildings other than homes.  Even some of the buildings were obviously abandoned.  One of these locations (Structure) even had a sign.  I'm curious to know whether these are historic towns, now back to farm land or vanity towns that one person or a group decided to register just for fun.  I was mostly driving on county roads between farms.  Once I stopped at an historic marker and two cars pulled up to see if I needed help -- within 5 minutes of each other.  I guess they don't get much tourist traffic in the area.

Also, this series started with a post about Georgetown, Texas, if you want to get an explanation of what this current set of posts is about.

Thorndale, Texas, June 2017

Thorndale

This is actually in the next county, but a good place to turn around.  This city has a developed main street as well as a municipal building across 79.  Although the buildings looked recently painted or cleaned, the street was mostly deserted.

Thrall, Texas, June 2017

Thrall

This town is actually named after a person.  This is a very small community with most roads being gravel.  There is a new-looking municipal building but also several completely dilapidated buildings.

Taylor, Texas, June 2017

Taylor

It was much easier to find city center here since this is a fairly developed city.  However, I didn't find city hall until I was wondering around looking for parking.  There was a nice looking church near by that looked like its bell tower had been lopped off at the top.  Although there were plenty of store fronts, the area was not very active while I was there and looked like a depressed or distressed city.

Hutto, Texas, June 2017

Hutto

I found city hall on a frontage right next to State 79, after wandering in houses for a while.  The city center seemed to be an intersection at 79 but there was just a gas station and a couple of houses.  79 is parallel to a frequently used railroad track.  I also noticed some silos on the other side of 79 by a railroad siding.

Brushy Creek, Texas, June 2017

Brushy Creek

I never found the town center.  Have theorized it is really part of Cedar Park, but I'm not really sure.  I took a picture of the Elementary School insteand.  The whole area looks like developments with recent main road, but with rural (older?) roads around the edges.

Leander, Texas, June 2017

Leander

Although easy to miss driving on 183 (all you see is a 7-11 and a weighing station), this is a city that is increasing in size rapidly.  The "downtown" is still rather sleepy with several local businesses often in converted homes.  However, there is a lot of development in the area.

Round Rock, Texas, June 2017

Round Rock

This city has a much more modern city hall, right next to a business development building (and a parking lot).  The main street was full of local shops and appeared quite busy (although it was a long weekend).  I also discovered that the city center was not too far from where I got on the 35 to drive up to Dallas when I first moved down to Austin.

There were plenty of eating establishments to choose from, as well as sweet shops and other trinkets.  There were no bookstores that I saw.  I stopped in for a drink and then got back on the road.

Also, sorry about the blurry photos.  It was overcast and the camera had a hard time dealing with it.

Georgetown, Texas, June 2017

Intro
On June 4 and 5, 2017 I decided to start visiting other cities and towns in Williamson County, Texas since this is now where I live. Although I live in a rural area, I'm still part of the Austin developed area. Driving further away from the state capital puts me into decidedly rural areas, even within Williamson County. The cities and towns are listed in the order I visited them, except for a collection of peculiar locations listed as my last post.

Georgetown
This is the county seat so I found the county courthouse, effectively in a center square. In the square were many markers and some statues usually about people that were significant in the founding or development of Georgetown. One marker of more recent vintage was dedicated to a lawyer who was one of the first in the nation to prosecute the KKK. Around the central square were a wide variety of shops and some office fronts all for local businesses. There is a university in the town which I didn't visit, but I did make it to Lake George. I spent some time at the shoreline around a picnic area. Later I found out if I had driven in a different direction I could have gone over the dam that created Lake George.