The complex is aligned with the cardinal directions, and is situated on a corner facing the old Austin-Georgetown Dallas Highway, renamed locally "Chisholm Trail Road." It is bounded on the east by Emanuel Street and is located on the north bank above Brushy Creek, in an area east of the U.S. Interstate 35 at its intersection with Texas Highway 79.

The one-room post office, facing east on the corner, has a load-bearing limestone wall on stone foundations. The original interior and exterior plaster has long since been removed as it deteriorated. A stone chimney pierces the high pitch, wooden shingle roof at the west (rear) facade where a small fireplace is located. A wooden porch supported by two sturdy, boxed columns extended across the east (front) facade originally. It was removed about 1950 when the street was widened. A narrow, unobtrusive wooden addition was built at the rear in the late 1960s to house air-conditioning and lavatory.

The flooring is of large, smooth stones from nearby Brushy Creek; the ceiling is open to reveal the pine rafters of the roof. The sturdy, carpenter-made door on the north is of thick pine boards heavily studded with nails on the exterior, and with an iron, closing security bar inside. The three-bay east facade displays two medium-sized, double-hung windows with six-over-six lights on each side of the double entry doors.

The two-story Owen House, located only four feet from the south side of the store, is set back some fifteen feet from the front of the store and 25 feet from the road, facing east. It is built of rectangular blocks of local limestone and coursed rubble, and is described locally as being of beautiful stone work. Wood-frame galleries extend across the upper and lower stories of the front facade.

The house is symmetrical, and features a central entrance. The gabled roof is presently covered with composite shingles. Double doors upstairs and down have fanlights flanked by a pair of double-hung windows with six over-six lights facing the upper and lower galleries. Cut stone sills are used for both doors and windows, while the window lintels are also of stone. The flat arches of all openings are of shaped voussoirs. A similar style is repeated on the three fireplace openings. Symmetry is also maintained on the north and south facades, with one window identical to those on the east facade occurring to each side of a chimney at each end of the house.

There are four large rooms, two upstairs and two down, on each side of the shallow stair hall, and a small lean-to kitchen addition, with chimney, on the west (rear) facade to which has been added a frame extension for storage and lavatory.

A narrow stairway in the hall leads to the two large upstairs bedrooms in which storage units and a single bath have been installed. The two lower rooms are identical in size to the bedrooms. Each lower room has a fireplace with a replica of a simple Texas-style mantle of the period. The kitchen cooking fireplace has a built-up hearth. Cornice moldings in the four rooms are of pine painted white. Plaster that once covered the interior walls has been removed, leaving the natural color and texture of the rough limestone exposed.

For necessary stabilization of the north chimney, tie rods are fastened to two iron bands extending across the entire north wall. The rods reach through the house to a similar band on the south wall and to interior securing bolts.

The two-story gallery across the east facade of the Owen House is a recent restoration based upon an examination of similar forms on other houses of the period. The tapered columns of the second floor porch were retained, however, from the original design. According to historic photographs of the house, the gallery had been remodeled more than once before the house was acquired by the present owner.

The original Round Rock Post Office and the Owen House are intact examples of middle 19th century Texas vernacular architecture which reflect the early history of the community of Round Rock. Located along the stagecoach route from Austin to Dallas, these two structures are indicative of the character of the town prior to the coming of the railroad.

The adjacent Old Round Rock Post Office and Owen House are located on Chisholm Trail Road, the old stagecoach route which once served as the main street of the town. The two structures are rehabilitated examples of the simple stone buildings that were characteristic of the community in the previous century. The Post Office was erected by the first postmaster, Thomas C. Oatts, in 1823. The more imposing Owen House was built about 1870, and features a two story porch across the main facade. Those who lived and worked in these buildings witnessed the passing of the thousands of Longhorn cattle that forded Brushy Creek nearby, as well as the cowmen on their way up the trail who stopped to trade at the town's flourishing general mercantile stores.

Both buildings are an integral part of the cluster of a dozen or so remaining structures in various states of repair along the original Military Road. It was surveyed in the 1840s during the days of the Texas Republic. By the late 1850s, the route was known as the Austin-Georgetown-Dallas Road. Beginning in the late 1860s, the road was near one of the wide feeder trails for cattle drives that joined the main Chisholm Trail at the Red River, in Indian Territory.

Thomas C. Oatts and Founder Jacob Harrell are credited with naming the town of Round Rock for the anvil shaped rock in nearby Brushy Creek on whose banks Oatt's first post office and store were located. After a devastating flood he bought land above the creek from Harrell, and in 1853 built the present structure that became the first permanent post office. Within a few years mail was delivered there thrice weekly, and Oatts may well have provided a wagon yard (where the house now stands) for his mercantile customers, as well as a livery stable and hostelry (now destroyed). Yet settlements were sparse on the Indian-threatened frontier, and at the eve of the Civil War, the population of Williamson County was only 3,700, including 876 slaves.

Oatts remained postmaster until 1860, but continued his business until 1867 when he sold his store-and-post office building, and adjoining lots, to Henry Harris, who then sold the property three years later to Dr. Wm. M. Owen and his wife Sarah. The main house was perhaps built by Harris, although it is also referred to as the "old Owen home." Actually, the builder remains uncertain. In the 1870 U.S. Census, Dr. Owen's real estate holdings evaluation was given as $2500, which could include the value of his large home.

Round Rock was a prosperous racing center until the International and Great Northern Railroad bypassed it in 1876, and a new town was established south of the original settlement. Within a few years the old town lost its commercial importance, although the old Austin-to-Dallas Highway continued to be the main road, passing in front of these two landmarks until the 1950s.

Beginning in the 1940s, an interest in the "old town" was fostered by Colonel William Ross Irvin, who purchased a number of the neglected old structures for restoration. By this time, the post office and house had passed through a number of ownerships, and through the years the house often served as a lodging place for travelers. A grocery store was operated in the post office building by A. E. McLoud, whose widow sold the property to James and Harriet Irvin Rutland in 1965.

The Rutlands restored the post office and house and, in 1981, Harriet Rutland sold the property to George H. Murray. In late 1981, the house was leased to three doctors for offices, and the post office was offered for commercial lease.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ledbetter, Mrs. Bernice. Telephone interviews by Crystal

Ragsdale, Round Rock, Texas, June and July 1981.

Mann, William L., Papers. Scrapbook (Williamson County). Box

31340. Barker Texas History Center, University of

Texas at Austin.

Oatts, Thomas C. Deed to Henry W. Harris, Williamson County

Deed Records, Courthouse, Georgetown, Texas, v. 10,

pp. 408-409, 2 January, 1868.

Scarborough, Clara Stearns. Land of Good Water. Georgetown,

Texas, Williamson County Sun Publishers, 1973.

Treadway, Mary. Deed to Tom Lindsey, Williamson County Deed

Records, Courthouse, Georgetown, Texas, v. 398, p.

115, 10 August, 1954.

Voigt, Miss Xenia. Telephone interviews by Crystal Ragsdale,

Round Rock, Texas, June and July, 1981.

MAPS: Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and

Confederate Armies 1861-1865. General Topographical

Map. Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office

1865, Sheet XXII, Plate CLVII.

Colton's Atlas of the World, "New Map of the State of

Texas." New York: J. H. Colton and Co., 1856.

Cooke, William G. "Col. William G. Cooke's Map of His Route

to Red River and Return, 1840-41." Atlas F. General

Land Office, Austin, Texas, p. 15a.