Pilot Knob

Pilot Knob is near the intersection of U.S. Highway 183 and Farm Road 812, eight miles southeast of Austin in southern Travis County. It was named for a nearby geological feature believed to be the remains of a cretaceous volcano. The area was settled primarily by families who moved to Texas after the Civil War. The Pilot Knob school had two teachers and ninety-nine students in 1907. A church and a few scattered houses marked the community on county highway maps in the 1940s. The Pilot Knob school district was consolidated with the Colorado (later Del Valle) district in 1956 and 1957. Residents made an effort to incorporate their community in 1963, but they lacked the necessary number of signatures.