801 Main Street
(on the square downtown Georgetown)
Marker Text
Associated with Texas pioneers, businessmen, statesmen, writers. Erected 1901 as a hotel by P.H. Dimmitt & Co. Later occupied by mercantile stores -- meeting place for families and friends from Williamson County communities. Georgetown's first movie house, then auto agency; later a drug store, dental office, bus depot. Remodeled 1960 by Georgetown Savings & Loan Association, preserving Spanish arches, columns, and turrets of native stone. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965 .
Google Map
GPS Coordinates
Latitude: 30.636479 Longitude: -97.676893
Address: 801 S Main St
Dimmitt - Old Building
A brief history of Georgetown savings and loan association building
The present Georgetown Savings and Loan Association Building was erected in 1901 by P. H. Dimmitt. It was designed with the purpose of making it into a hotel, but these plans never materialized. It was then known as the P. H. Dimmitt and Company Building.
The first occupants of the building were retail stores. The smaller of the two shops was a millinery shop and occupied the space now occupied by Attorneys McClain and Stump. The larger portion of the building was occupied by a dry goods store called the "Good Luck Store". The store was operated by Georgetown pioneer W. F. Magee and served the entire surrounding area from Round Rock on the South to Jarrell on the north and from Liberty Hill in the west to Jonah on the east. The "Good Luck Store" was the meeting place and supply house for the community pioneers and their children.
Following the days of the "Good Luck Store" and as the community expanded and specialized, in the late 1920s, the motion picture made its debut in Georgetown. A special floor was built in the building sloping from the front up to the back. A motion picture screen was installed in the front and the Keystone Cops came to Georgetown. Mr. Byron Atkinson operated the motion picture concession for about 2 years before abandoning the building.
W. F. Magee returned to the site and joined Albert Towns.
They merged their talents and opened one of the Central Texas earliest Buick automobile agencies. Mr. Magee sold the autos and ran the office while Mr. Towns acted as a mechanic and ran the shop portion.
In the 1930s Tommy Cooper moved into the structure and remodeled it to house Cooper's Drug, later to be known as Cooper's Walgreen Drug. Cooper not only filled prescriptions and jerked sodas but opened Georgetown's first bus station for Greyhound buses. Thus travelers from far and wide visited the building.
Behind Cooper's Drug, Dr. Walter Martin opened his dental office and operated from that office until his demise.
Cooper's Drug saw many men and youngsters pass through and sip sodas on their way to fame and fortune. President Lyndon B. Johnson, during his early campaigns and political rise, shook many hands in Cooper's Drug and on the corner nearby.
Senator John Tower spent moments of leisure in the booths and at the counters, perhaps giving little serious thought to his future in politics.
Internationally famous western author, J. Frank Dobie visited the building often and swapped stories of tales of the west.
In the 1950's Cooper's Drug closed its doors and shut in the memories of the past and of the people who were building a strong central Texas.
In 1960, W. Grogan Lord leased the building from Mrs. Lilburn Douglass, a Dimmitt heir, and remodeled the interior. Since 1901 the exterior had remained the same and it was Mr. Lord's desire and intention to retain the beauty of the early architecture and the comforting sight which the community had come to know as one of the city's lasting landmarks.
Today the exterior retains the old fashioned archway and column architectural charm, yet set back under these archways is the gleaming beauty of modern design with its enormous floor to ceiling plate glass windows and the soothing display of mahogany-paneled walls in the central heated and air-conditioned interior.
Operating from the building today are Georgetown Savings and Loan Association, an association only 9 years younger than the building itself, and Texas Capital Corporation, a finance company more than a half-century younger than the structure.
From "Good Luck Store" to picture show to the auto agency to the drug store and bus station to its today's financial corporations, the building has been recognized as a place where service has been rendered to Texans. It has been the Southeast corner of the square, thus making up a major part of the face of Georgetown. It was and remains a landmark not easily forgotten by Texans.