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    Brush Square is one of the three remaining original downtown squares as envisioned in Edwin Waller’s 1839 plan for Austin. Brush Square is named after Seba Bogart Brush, a merchant, who used the Square to store cotton before his death in 1874.

    Brush Square currently hosts the former residence of the author William Sidney Porter, better known as O. Henry, who resided in Austin (1893 and 1895, relocated to Brush Square in 1934); the former home of Susanna Dickinson, a famous survivor of the Battle of the Alamo (relocated to Brush Square in 2003; and the Central Fire Station No. 1, built-in 1938. The O. Henry Museum and Susanna Dickinson Museum are operated by Austin Parks & Recreation Department. The Fire Station was designed by Edwin Kreisle and Max Brooks and remains an important example of the Art Moderne style. It is still in operation as a fire station.

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