Littig

Littig is on the Southern Pacific line two miles south of U.S. Highway 290 and eighteen miles northeast of Austin in eastern Travis County. It is said to be one of the oldest Black communities in the state. The townsite was laid out in 1883 on land donated by Jackson Morrow, a former slave. The town was named for A. B. Littig, former general division agent of the Houston and Texas Central Railway, who surveyed the townsite. A church and a school were built in 1887 on land donated by J. W. Bitting. In 1889 a post office was established there with Thomas B. Fowler as postmaster. By 1900 Littig had a general store, two cotton gins, three churches, and 168 residents. In 1907 the Littig common school district had three one-teacher schools for 185 Black students and a one-teacher school for thirty-three White students. The community began to decline during the 1930s; its population fell from an estimated 150 in 1936 to thirty-five by the 1940s. The Littig schools were consolidated with the Manda district in 1952. The post office at Littig was discontinued in 1954, and mail for the community was sent to Elgin in Bastrop County. A church and several houses marked the community's location on topographic maps of the area in the 1980s. The population of Littig was reported as thirty-seven from the late 1960s through 2000.