DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, every good town has a creation story, and Georgetown, Texas, has got one that starts exactly where you'd want it to — under a tree. According to local tradition, Williamson County's first six commissioners gathered right here in May of 1848, beneath a stately oak tree, to settle one of the most consequential questions a young county can face: where do you put the seat of government?
Six men, one oak, and a decision that needed makin'. That right there is the stuff of Texas legend before anything's even happened yet. Then along comes George Washington Glasscock, Senior.
Prominent local landowner. A man who apparently understood that the moment called for a grand gesture. He joined those commissioners and made them an offer — he would donate a stretch of land, bounded at one corner by that very oak tree they were all standing under, and running north and west all the way to the San Gabriel River.
A site for the county seat, free of charge. Now the commissioners, being reasonable men, accepted. And in July of 1848, they named the new town Georgetown — in Glasscock's honor.
The man gave away land and got a city named after him. Not a bad trade by any measure. But here's where the story takes that quiet turn that good stories always take.
That oak tree — the one at the corner of Glasscock's donation, the one those six commissioners stood beneath, the one that was there at the very beginning — it was felled by a storm in 1886. The town it helped birth was still standing. The tree was gone.
Sometimes the landmarks that start everything don't get to see how it all turns out.
What the marker says
According to local tradition Williamson County's first six commissioners met here under a stately oak tree in May 1848 to decide where the county seat should be located. Prominent local landowner George Washington Glasscock, Sr., later joined them and offered to donate an area of land bounded by the tree at one corner and the San Gabriel River to the north and west as a site for the county seat. The commissioners accepted his offer and in July 1848 named the town Georgetown in Glasscock's honor. The landmark oak tree was felled by a storm in 1886. (1994)