Lund

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm telling it to you. Way out in Travis County, there's a little place called Lund, and if you'd rolled through there a century ago, you might've heard it called something else entirely. Pleasant Hill.

That was the name the Swedish immigrants gave it when they settled in during the late 1880s, and you can almost picture why. Rolling Texas land, fresh start, a hopeful name. Eventually, though, the community changed that name to Lund, in honor of a city in southern Sweden, carrying a piece of the old country right into the Texas soil.

On January 16, 1897, under the leadership of the Reverend J.A. Stamline, the Swedish Evangelical Bethlehem Lutheran Church was founded. That congregation became the heartbeat of the place.

And Lund itself was no small operation. Homes, farms, cotton gins, a general store, a blacksmith shop, a post office, a school. A full community, built by hand, built by faith.

Now, here's where you slow down and listen. April 7, 1980. A tornado came through and destroyed the church building.

The thing those settlers and their descendants had built their lives around, gone. But Lund was not done. A new structure was built and dedicated in 1981.

Some places, you tear them down, and that's the end. Lund just built it back.

What the marker says

First known as Pleasant Hill, this community was settled by Swedish immigrants in the late 1880s. The name of the settlement eventually was changed to Lund in honor of a city in southern Sweden. Under the leadership of the Rev. J.A. Stamline, the Swedish Evangelical Bethlehem Lutheran Church was founded on January 16, 1897. The Lund community included homes, farms, cotton gins, a general store, blacksmith shop, post office, and school. A tornado destroyed the church building on April 7, 1980. A new structure was built and dedicated in 1981.