Pond Springs Community and School

Pond Springs was sometimes called Rutledge, for the family whose store stood on a road and stage line. When the Austin and Northwestern Railroad passed it by in 1882, a new settlement, called Rutledge or New Rutledge, grew up to the northeast, and the old log school was moved to Jollyville. The supplemental plaque shows the marker has travelled too: in 2006 the Round Rock school district placed it at the school's fourth site. The Handbook says the community disappeared after 1882, and a housing development later took the Pond Springs name.

What the plaque says

Pond Springs Community and School After James O. Rice settled in the 1850s near a spring-fed pond, the area was called "Pond Spring." By 1854 a log school building was erected near the pond (1 mi.N) and also served for worship and a social center. Thomas S. Rutledge ran a nearby store, post office and blacksmith shop. After the post office closed in 1880 and the Austin & Northwestern Railroad bypassed Pond Springs in 1882, the community declined. The school was consolidated in 1903 with Jollyville, moved to this site in 1927, and became part of the Round Rock district in 1969. (1979) supplemental plaque: In 2006, the Round Rock Independent School District moved this historical marker, commemorating the Pond Springs community and school, to this location, the fourth site of the Pond Springs School.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Round Rock — 6.4 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 — 8.7 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

• Jollyville Community and School — 0.7 mi
• Jolly Cemetery — 1.2 mi
• Cedar Chopping in Central Texas — 3.1 mi
• Waters Park — 3.9 mi