David Love Store

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little extra mustard. David M. Love was born in South Carolina in 1821, and somewhere along the way this man decided that Williamson County, Texas, was exactly where he needed to be.

He came early, before the county had much of anything to offer except hard ground and harder work, and he threw himself into farming and ranching the way a man does when he has something to prove. Then, sometime in the 1860s, he made his move. He packed up whatever a man packs up and headed into Georgetown.

Now, Georgetown was a town with ambitions, and it turned out David Love had a few of his own. He built himself into a prominent local business leader, the kind of man whose name meant something when it was spoken in a room. And in the mid-1880s, he did what prominent men with something to say tend to do.

He said it in brick and iron. He had a Victorian commercial structure built for his mercantile business, and he did not build it plain. No sir.

That building went up with an ornate metal façade on the second floor, square pilasters standing at attention, and a decorative cornice up top that lets you know whoever commissioned this place was not interested in being forgettable. The first-floor storefront has since been restored, but the bones of the thing, that Victorian ambition pressed into metal and masonry, those have held. David M.

Love died in 1892, but he left something behind that still catches the eye of anyone who looks up. In Georgetown, that building looks right back.

What the marker says

South Carolina native David M. Love (1821-1892) was an early settler of Williamson County. He was engaged in farming and ranching before moving to Georgetown in the 1860s. A prominent local business leader, he had this Victorian commercial structure built for his mercantile business in the mid-1880s. Features of the building include an ornate metal façade on the second floor, square pilasters, a decorative cornice, and a restored first-floor storefront. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988