Lund is a small

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 northeastern

Travis County Travis County is located in Central Texas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,290,188. It is the fifth-most populous county in Texas. Its county seat and most populous city is Austin, the state's capital. The county was established i ...

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. It is located within the

Greater Austin The Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos Metropolitan Statistical Area, metropolitan statistical area, or Greater Austin, is a five-county United States metropolitan area, metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Texas, as defined by the Office of ...

metropolitan area.

History

Late in the 1880s,

Swedes Swedes (), or Swedish people, are an ethnic group native to Sweden, who share a common ancestry, Culture of Sweden, culture, History of Sweden, history, and Swedish language, language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, ...

began to settle in Lund. It was initially called Pleasant Hill. A post office with the name of either a local family or the town in Sweden was established there in 1899. The community served as the hub of a sizable Swedish agricultural hamlet that grew as an outpost of the

New Sweden New Sweden () was a colony of the Swedish Empire between 1638 and 1655 along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in what is now Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Established during the Thirty Years' War when Sweden was a g ...

region four miles to the west. N. M. Anderson, August Thornquist, and Gustaf Seaholm were Lund's first settlers. Other Swedish families settled in the area in the 1890s. The pastor of the New Sweden Lutheran Church was Dr. J. A. Stamline. On January 16, 1897, the Bethlehem congregation in Lund was founded with 19 communicants and 20 children. P. V. Nelson, Nels Ankarstolpe, and J. E. Rivers donated of land to the congregation, and another acre was set aside for a communal cemetery. Construction of the church began in the autumn of 1899. In 1989, the Bethlehem Lutheran Church was still in operation. Lund had a general store, two

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

s, and a

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

shop in the 1890s. From their residence in Lund, two brothers named Carl and Fred Bergman wrote letters to their sisters who lived in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. They wrote, "West of us there live nothing but Swedes for a distance of about sixteen miles," in a letter dated January 23, 1896. "A peculiar variety of people dwell east, south, and north of us, including Americans,

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

Bohemians Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, originally practised by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers. * Bohemian style, a f ...

, Negroes, and

Mexicans Mexicans () are the citizens and nationals of the Mexico, United Mexican States. The Mexican people have varied origins with the most spoken language being Spanish language, Spanish, but many also speak languages from 68 different Languages o ...

." Large crops were generated by the fertile countryside, and the new immigrants in Lund started to identify more with Americans than with Swedes. Twenty-seven Lund natives fought in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, while several others did the same in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Lund was seriously damaged by a storm on April 7, 1980. The Lund Bethlehem Lutheran Church had to be destroyed after being upended from its foundation. To replace the original church, a sizable brick building with a bell tower was constructed.

Geography

Lund is located in northeastern Travis County.

Education

The year 1891 saw the establishment of a Swedish Lutheran Sunday school by Dr. J. A. Stamline. The first school in Lund was established in the fall of 1894, and the initial academic year was three months long. The schoolhouse had windows on two sides and was by in size. The school at Lund was closed in 1947 due to a decline in the population of the rural area, and the Manda school district subsequently incorporated it along with the schools in Carlson,

, and Kimbro. They all came together to form the

Elgin Independent School District Elgin Independent School District is a public school district based in Elgin, Texas (USA). The district is located in northern Bastrop County and extends into small portions of Travis and Lee counties. It includes parts of Manor. In 2009, ...

in 1963. Schools that are zoned for the community are Neidig Elementary School, Elgin Middle School, and Elgin High School.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Texas Unincorporated communities in Travis County, Texas