Art is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in
Mason County,
Texas
Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
, United States. According to the
Handbook of Texas
The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...
, the highly-dispersed community had an estimated population of 18 in 2016.
Geography
Art is situated along
State Highway 29, approximately nine miles east of
Mason
Mason may refer to:
Occupations
* Mason, brick mason, or bricklayer, a worker who lays bricks to assist in brickwork, or who lays any combination of stones, bricks, cinder blocks, or similar pieces
* Stone mason, a craftsman in the stone-cutti ...
, 27 miles west of
Llano and 90 miles west of
Austin
Austin refers to:
Common meanings
* Austin, Texas, United States, a city
* Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
* Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters
* Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...
.
History
As one of the first settlements in
Mason County, the community was initially settled around 1856, when five
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
families set up homesteads along Upper Willow Creek. They were followed by German settlers from nearby
Fredericksburg, who established themselves along Willow Creek for about ten miles in both directions. Originally called Willow Creek (or Upper Willow Creek), the community suffered numerous Indian raids, although nearby
Fort Mason
Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California is a former United States Army post located in the northern Marina District, alongside San Francisco Bay. Fort Mason served as an Army post for more than 100 years, initially as a coastal defense site a ...
offered some protection.
A log
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...
church building that doubled as a schoolhouse was built in 1858. That building was replaced by a stone structure in 1875. In 1883, J.A. Hoerster opened one of the first general stores in the community. In 1886, Otto Plehwe purchased the store from Hoerster.
Plehwe established a post office in the store soon after and served as its first postmaster. At that time, Plehwe renamed the community Plehweville, but the post office department requested a name change as its difficult spelling caused mail to be lost. On December 23, 1920, Eli Dechart had taken over as store owner and postmaster and decided to rename the town Art after the last three letters of his name.
Throughout its history, Art has remained a small, primarily ranching community. From 1925 to the mid-1960s, the population remained steady at around 25 before experiencing a brief increase to 46 in the late 1960s. The population continued to decline during the latter half of the twentieth century.
Today, Art exists as a widely dispersed community.
Despite its size, Art continues to have a functioning post office (zip code: 76820).
Zip Code Lookup
Education
Public Education in the community of Art is provided by the Mason Independent School District.
References
External links
*
{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in Texas
Unincorporated communities in Mason County, Texas