Llano County Courthouse Historic District

Downtown Llano, on the south bank of the Llano River in the Texas hill country, is preserved as a historic district of about 28 acres. It covers parts of nine city blocks around the 1893 county courthouse and its green square, with roughly 66 sites, 53 of them contributing. Most are one- and two-story commercial rows of stone or brick, built between about 1877 and 1939 and often showing Italianate detailing, with later Mission Revival and Moderne touches. Local sandstone and granite are used throughout, and concrete works at the river, including a 1908 dam, a 1918 power plant smokestack and a 1936 truss bridge, mark the northern edge. The town was platted in 1857 and grew as the county seat, then boomed between 1886 and 1893 with iron ore mining and the arrival of the railroad. After fires hit North Llano in 1893, the south-side square regained its place as the main business center. The district remains a nearly intact pre-World War II town center.