Travis, Texas: A Historical Overview of the Rural Settlement


By: Laurie E. Jasinski

Published: June 8, 2004

Travis is a rural settlement located about six miles northwest of Bellville and off County Road 289 in northern Austin County. The town was laid off in 1837 near a branch of the East Fork of Mill Creek and on the survey of Gibson Kuykendall, Old Three Hundred settler and Texas army veteran. Settlers named the town after William B. Travis, commander at the Alamo. The community had a post office from 1846 to 1881, and in 1867 the Texas Almanac reported an "academy" at Travis. By the 1930s only a cemetery and scattered dwellings remained. Throughout the twentieth century highway maps showed Travis as a rural village, but no population figures were available.

TSHA is a proud affiliate of University of Texas at Austin
Julia Lange Dinkins, The Early History of Austin County (M. A. thesis, Southwest Texas State Teachers College, 1940).

Places:

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

Laurie E. Jasinski, “Travis, TX (Austin County),” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/travis-tx-austin-county.

Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

TID: HVT89

June 8, 2004

Find out more about this place from our Texas Almanac.

Place
Travis
Currently Exists
No
Place Type
Town
USGS ID
1348709
Town Fields
  • Has post office: No
  • Is Incorporated: No
Belongs to
  • Austin County
Coordinates
  • Latitude: 30.01244470°
  • Longitude: -96.33524350°

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