Jollyville Community and School

Jollyville Road is named for where it led. A Travis County Historical Commission writer says county road records of 1898 to 1902 show it starting near today's Balcones Drive and FM 2222 and running north toward the Jolly settlement, which sat on the Austin to Burnet route toward Fort Croghan and Hamilton Valley. Stage traffic ended when the railroad came in 1883. John G. Jolly's one-room log cabin was reportedly moved to Pioneer Farms in 2013 to save it from demolition, though its chimney was gone. The Austin History Center holds photographs of the cabin.

What the plaque says

Jollyville Community and School This area was first settled in the 1840s by Henry Rhodes. He was soon joined by such pioneers as Elisha Prewitt, who fought in the Battle of San Jacinto, and Civil War veterans Elisha Rhodes, J. Bryon Jenkins, and William H. Thompson, whose home at this site served as a stage stop. In 1866 Confederate veteran John G. Jolly established the Jollyville community. The owner of a store and blacksmith shop, he gave land for a cemetery and for a school (200 ft. W), which was merged with Pond Springs in 1903. Later growth in the Jollyville area resulted from nearby urban development. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Round Rock — 7.1 mi
  A table-shaped stone in Brushy Creek gave Round Rock its name in 1854; the Chisholm Trail crossed the creek near it, and Old Town stayed behind when the railroad pulled the town east.
• Mount Bonnell — 8.1 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 — 11 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.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 11 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.

More markers nearby

• Jolly Cemetery — 0.4 mi
• Pond Springs Community and School — 0.7 mi
• Cedar Chopping in Central Texas — 3.5 mi
• Balcones Fault Aids Colonization of Texas — 3.7 mi