Kimbro
Manor, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
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)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The community of Kimbro, named for landowner Lemuel Kimbro, was settled in the late 1870s by Swedish, Danish, and German immigrants who worked the cotton fields of eastern Travis County. At its height it had homes, farms, the Swedish Evangelical Free Church, a school, a cotton gin, and two stores. The school closed in 1947 and the church was moved away in 1954, leaving little but the graves of its founders.
Why it matters
Kimbro is a vanished immigrant farming settlement of the kind that once dotted the Texas cotton country before consolidation drew families to larger towns.
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Related people
- · Lemuel Kimbro
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Manda
Manor, TX
Swedish immigrants founded Manda in the 1880s, naming it for Amanda Bengtson Gustafson, sister of the town's postmaster. Within a decade it was a working farm community with a cotton gin, general store, and blacksmith shop, its social life anchored by a Swedish Methodist congregation organized in 1892 and a Lutheran chapel built in 1896. As rural schools consolidated and congregations dispersed, Manda faded, leaving its cemetery and repurposed schoolhouse as reminders.
Site of Willow Ranch School
Manor, TX
In 1894 the Travis County landowner Peter Carr Wells gave a plot of his ranch to the Willow Ranch School District, and four years later a schoolhouse opened on this site. Most of its pupils were the children of Swedish immigrant farmers, some of whom sharecropped the Wells land, and they studied not only basic skills but Texas history, geography, and art. A second room was added in 1906 for classes and community gatherings before the school closed in 1938 and its students moved to Kimbro.
New Sweden Evangelical Lutheran Church
Manor, TX
Swedish immigrants and the Rev. J. O. Cavallin organized the New Sweden Evangelical Lutheran Congregation in 1876, raising their first sanctuary two miles west of this spot where the old cemetery still lies. The present church, a landmark of rural Travis County, was built in 1922 on land donated by Johanna Petterson, and services were held in Swedish until 1923. The congregation still gathers, tending both its ministry and its immigrant heritage.
Carlson
Manor, TX
Brothers Pete and John Carlson, Swedish immigrants who came to America in 1869, settled here in 1881 and helped found a small cotton-farming community. Pete opened the area's first store and John ran the cotton gin, and at its height in the early 20th century Carlson supported family farms, a school, a band hall, and a community club. As ownership changed hands the gin and store took new names, but the town's life turned on cotton.