Community of Nameless

Nameless lies on Sandy Creek just off Farm Road 1431, five miles northeast of Lago Vista in northwestern Travis County, and the Handbook dates its settlement to 1869. In 1884 it reported a church, a district school, a general store and fifty residents, and cotton, cedar posts and rails were the main goods shipped out. After the post office closed in 1890, mail for the community went to Leander. By the 1940s county highway maps showed two churches, a business and a few scattered houses there, and nothing later is recorded.

What the plaque says

Community of Nameless First surveyed in the 1850s, this area attracted numerous settlers by 1868. A community grew up, and in 1880 townspeople applied for a post office. After postal authorities rejected six names, the citizens replied in disgust, "Let the post office be nameless and be d—d". The implied "name" was accepted. Besides the post office (1880-90), town had store, meat market, and school, which also served as a church. The present school was erected in 1909; classes were discontinued in 1945. Today only school, cemetery, and ruins mark site of once-active community. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 11 mi
  A free federal refuge north of Lake Travis kept for two songbirds that need old juniper and oak, with trails at the Doeskin Ranch unit near Bertram.
• Mount Bonnell — 17 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.
• Harry Ransom Center — 20 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 20 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.

More markers nearby

• Anderson's Mill — 6.9 mi
• Hudson Bend — 8.2 mi
• Lohmans Crossing — 11 mi
• Smithwick Cemetery — 13 mi