Wallis

Wallis is at the junction of the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroads ten miles southeast of Sealy in extreme southeastern Austin County. Anglo-American settlement on the narrow strip of land west of the Brazos and east of the San Bernard River began in the late 1830s. The community was first known as Bovine Bend, and a post office by that name was established in 1873. After 1880, when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway constructed its Galveston-Brenham spur through the vicinity, the settlement became known as Wallis Station, in honor of J. E. Wallis, director of the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe. The name of the post office was changed to Wallis Station in 1886 and to Wallis in 1911. The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway, building east from Kenedy toward Houston, reached Wallis Station in 1887, and beginning around 1890 a number of Czech immigrants took up residence in the area. In 1904 the population was an estimated 631. There were 100 pupils enrolled at the Wallis school by 1918. In 1925 the population was 800, and in 1943 the town had 900 residents and thirty-nine businesses. The population declined to an estimated 690 in 1949 but began to climb thereafter, reaching an estimated 1,075 in 1966. By 1975 the town had eight churches, two schools, a bank, a public library, and a weekly newspaper, the Wallis News Review. In 1991 Wallis had a population estimated at 1,411 and fifteen rated businesses. According to the U.S. Census, the population was 1,311 in 2000.