Sempronius

Sempronius was an agricultural community on the south bank of Caney Creek eight miles north of Bellville in far northern Austin County. The town was founded by Anglo-American settlers in 1837. A post office opened there in 1846. In the early 1880s an influx of German immigrants greatly stimulated the town's development, and by 1885 it had a school, a cotton gin, a steam-powered gristmill, two churches, and a population of 150. In the early 1880s, however, Sempronius was bypassed by the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway and soon began to lose population to nearby Kenney and other points to the north and west. The post office was discontinued in 1905, after which time mail was delivered on a rural route from Chapel Hill. Though a school for black students continued to operate in the vicinity as late as 1917, the townsite had been abandoned by the end of World War I.