Cities and Towns

Photographs documenting people and businesses in Del Valle, Texas from the Austin Files collection. Del Valle is on the Colorado River seven miles southeast of Austin in southeastern Travis County. It was established in the mid-1870s and named for its location on Santiago Del Valle's land grant. A post office opened at Del Valle in 1878 with William Givens as postmaster. By the mid-1880s the community had three churches, a school, a steam gristmill, a general store, two cotton gins, and fifty residents; grain and cotton were the primary crops shipped by area farmers. By 1900 the population had grown to seventy-five. Del Valle was the focus of a common-school district, which in 1907 had a one-teacher school for nine White students and a one-teacher school for 108 Black students. Del Valle was hurt by the onset of the Great Depression, as the population fell from an estimated 150 in 1927 to twenty-five in the early 1930s. Children from the area attended schools in the Colorado and Hornsby-Dunlap districts. However, the construction of Del Valle Army Air Field (later known as Bergstrom Air Force Base) in 1942 brought a small increase in population as new support services moved into the area. The community had 125 residents by the mid-1940s and 200 residents by the mid-1950s. The Colorado school district was renamed Del Valle in 1962, and the Del Valle community became the center of a large independent school district in 1963. Population estimates for Del Valle remained at 300 from the early 1970s through 1990, although the number of businesses in the community increased from twelve in 1970 to thirty-five in 1990. By 2000 the population had grown to 2,476 with 158 businesses.

Media documenting Manor, Texas from the Austin Files collection. Manor was named for James B. Manor, who settled on Gilleland Creek west of present-day downtown Manor. A school for boys began operation northwest of the present Manor High School complex in 1854 and was followed in 1858 by a school for girls near the present Manor Elementary School. A post office was reestablished in the Manor home in 1859 under the name of Grassdale with James Manor serving as Post Master. A mercantile store was built in 1868 the present cemetery and was followed by a second store in 1869. In late 1871 as the Houston and Texas Central Railway constructed the first railroad link to the Texas capital, James Manor made a donation of right-of-way which brought the line through what is now the town. The inaugural train arrived in Austin on Christmas Day 1871. The following year the community of Manor was laid out and named. It was incorporated as a town in March 1913 and converted to a general law city in 1921 with expectations of continued growth. Following two devastating fires that destroyed most of the business district, coupled with the decline of cotton production after the arrival of the boll weevil, Manor remained a small city throughout most of the twentieth century.