Cedar Valley

Cedar Valley is on U.S. Highway 290 twelve miles southwest of Austin in southwestern Travis County. Mark Thomas, an early settler, gave land for a school in 1867. A post office opened in 1872 with Peter Wuthrich as postmaster. By the mid-1880s Cedar Valley had two churches, a district school, and forty residents; area farmers shipped cotton, wool, and hides. The population of the community rose to 100 by the late 1930s but fell to fifty by 1949. The post office was discontinued in 1957, and mail for Cedar Valley was sent to Austin. The population increased to 150 in the late 1960s but stabilized at seventy from the 1970s through 2000.