Kimbro

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Out here in Travis County, there's a place called Kimbro, and if you slow down long enough, you can almost feel the weight of what used to stand on this ground. The community took its name from a pioneer landowner, Lemuel Kimbro, and in the late 1870s, settlers started arriving.

Not just one kind of settler, either. Swedish, Danish, and German immigrants came to this land and put down roots the kind of roots that take real work to grow. Most of them were cotton farmers, and for a time, this little community had everything a place needs to feel permanent.

Homes. Farms. A cotton gin humming away in season.

Two general stores where you could trade news alongside dry goods. And a school where children learned what their parents had crossed an ocean to give them. There was even a church, the Swedish Evangelical Free Church of Kimbro, which tells you something about who these people were and what they carried with them when they came.

At its height, Kimbro was a real place, a living, working community. But time has a way of thinning things out. The school closed in 1947 when the nearby Manda Consolidated School District was formed.

Then in 1954, the church building itself was moved to Elgin. The congregation, the gin, the stores, the school, one by one the structures that gave Kimbro its shape drifted away or went quiet. What stayed behind were the graves.

Many of Kimbro's early settlers were buried here, and some of their descendants still live in the area to this day. That's the thing about a place like Kimbro. The buildings move on.

The names stay.

What the marker says

Named for pioneer landowner Lemuel Kimbro, this community was settled in the late 1870s by Swedish, Danish, and German immigrants. Most of the residents were cotton farmers, and at its height the community boasted homes, farms, the Swedish Evangelical Free Church of Kimbro, a school, a cotton gin, and two general stores. The school closed in 1947 when the nearby Manda Consolidated School District was formed, and the church building was moved to Elgin in 1954. Many of Kimbro's early settlers were buried here; some of their descendants still reside in the area. (1991)