Williamson County Historical Commission
contact Wayne Ware (512)
863-2202
From Agriculture
Dependent to
High Tech and Traffic Jams
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for stories by Dub
By Dub Ramsel
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These stories cover a period
from early 1950's to the late eighties. These stories have come from my
memory with an occasional quote from some Williamson County residents.
When I arrived to Williamson County in 1952, Georgetown, like most other
small communities were dependent on Agriculture almost entirely. When
the farmers made good crops the local merchants did business. Golds
Department Store, Ben Neuman and Hoffman's sold new clothes. W.G. Lord
and later Bennie Draeger sold Ford Products, Buster Compton sold Chevies
and Oldsmobiles and Buicks. Carl Dunn sold Pontiacs and General Motor
Trucks. Ralph Freund sold Cadillac’s and Truehart had Studebakers and
Chryslers.
The Georgetown oil Mill was about the largest payroll in town. The two
Cotton Gins and many other gins from around the County supplied cotton
seed for their oil Milling. They used the pressed seed after the oil was
extracted to make a 22 percent protein feed for livestock. They also
prepared rations for all types of livestock. A lot of small grain, mil
and corn were purchased from the farmers and then sold back to them and
the ranchers
Three Way Grain put in a large feed mill with storage facilities and cut
into the Oil Mill business and finally managed to close them down. The
feed mill employed a lot of folks mainly from the south end of town.
The County was divided in that livestock was raised mostly in the
western half of the County and row cropping was done mostly in the
eastern half. Up until the 1940's Williamson County was the top
producing county in cotton. Then the bole weevil and the irrigation
moved most of the cotton to west Texas.
Southwestern University has been in Georgetown since "old Nick was a
pup" and his been a large contributor to the economy of the City, but
there were hard times for them. Then the former students began getting
rich and made large gifts to them. Gene Longiano was the egg man in the
town and he told me had to carry them on credit for extended periods of
time during the fifties.
Then Austin became a high tech city and people began moving in to
Georgetown to live. This helped the economy considerably, It also
created traffic jams. It is what is known as a "Bed Room Community", and
the population has multiplied ten fold.
Most of the farming and ranching today is done by part time producers.
Some are still doing it on a large scale if they can lease enough land
to work with. Land prices have escalated ten fold along with the
population and you might say it is the "Hobby Farmer and Rancher" doing
most of the farming and ranching.