Times Square is a place you visit once in a long while, if ever. You go to look at it.
A town square is where you live. It is where you get a haircut, eat Tex-Mex, see a movie, and buy feed and hardware. The people behind the counter are your neighbors, and the businesses are owned by neighbors too.
When outside money buys the buildings and the businesses, and a square slowly becomes a row of franchises, that is Times Square creeping in.
Our opinionThis is what we think, not a finding of fact. Outside owners are not villains, and some are good for a town. We just think neighbors should be able to see who owns the places that make a square a square.
What we are doing
We are mapping who owns the businesses on and around Texas town squares, from public records. We go county by county. Texas has 254 counties, more than any other state, so this will take a while.
Each business gets one of four colours. Every colour will link to the public record behind it.
Green. The owners live in the same county as the business.
Yellow. The owners are in Texas, but in another county.
Red. The owners are out of state.
Grey. Not confirmed yet. Most places start here.
We never guess. If we cannot show the record, the place stays grey.
We will also walk each square with our own street photos. Faces and licence plates are blurred before we keep anything. We plan to redo each square every year, so you can see what changed.
First square: Hallettsville (Lavaca County)
Coming soon
Hallettsville is the county seat of Lavaca County, and its courthouse stands in the middle of the town square. It is our first square. Nothing is mapped yet, so every place starts grey.
Illustration. A made-up courthouse square, not Hallettsville's real map. It uses no real businesses and no real data. Grey means not confirmed yet, which is where every real place will start.
Last checked 8 Nov 2026. These back the two plain facts on this page: Hallettsville is the Lavaca County seat with its courthouse on the square, and Texas has 254 counties.