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June 15, 2026

Pflugerville

Location: Pflugerville, TX (~15 miles northeast of Austin off TX-130)
Anchor Site: Lake Pflugerville / Old Town Pflugerville

The Hook

A small German farming community that spent 120 years being a sleepy suburb of nothing in particular — then became the fastest-growing city in Texas. The name still trips up every newcomer and news anchor who encounters it.

Key Facts

  • Town established 1860 by William Bohls (1827–1907), who ran a store and post office from his home — the town was named for his neighbor, not him
  • Named for Henry Pfluger (1803–1867), a German immigrant who arrived in 1849 and settled just east of the present town in 1853; “Pflugerville” roughly translates to “little plowman’s village”
  • A school was established 1872, a Lutheran church 1875; the official Pflugerville post office opened 1893 with Louis Bohls (son of the founder) as postmaster — population about 250
  • The MKT railroad extended a line to Pflugerville in 1904, doubling the population almost immediately
  • Otto Pfluger (Henry’s son) built two cotton gins between 1904 and 1909 and later an ice factory; H.H. Pfluger opened the Sky Dome Theater in 1913 (operated until 1928)
  • Pflugerville ISD created 1919; the Pflugerville Gym was built 1934 through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and served as home to the Pflugerville Panthers football team
  • The community remained under 700 people through 1980
  • From 1980–1988, Pflugerville was the fastest-growing community in the entire state of Texas, driven by Austin’s tech-sector expansion pushing residents north
  • Lake Pflugerville, a 180-acre reservoir, is a central recreation site
  • Typhoon Texas (formerly Pflugerville’s Typhoon Texas Waterpark) is one of Central Texas’s major water parks

Story / History

The Pfluger family — and the extended German immigrant community that settled this stretch of Travis County in the late 1840s — arrived as part of the broader German migration to Central Texas. Companies like the Adelsverein (German Colonization Society) had been actively recruiting German families to Texas since the 1840s with promises of rich farmland, and communities like New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, and the farming settlements north of Austin sprang from that wave.

The actual founder of the town wasn’t Henry Pfluger — it was his neighbor William Bohls, who opened a store and post office from his home in 1860. Henry Pfluger had arrived from Germany in 1849 and settled just east of the present town four years later. He died in 1867 before the community was even formally platted. The name Pflugerville stuck because the Pfluger family — Henry’s sons Otto, Albert, William, and H.H. — became the most economically dominant presence in town for the next several generations. A tight-knit German Lutheran community formed over the next decades, with church and school preceding the official post office by two decades — a reflection of the community’s priorities. When the post office opened in 1893, Louis Bohls (son of the founder) became postmaster.

The MKT railroad changed everything in 1904. Before the line arrived, Pflugerville had about 250 people; it doubled almost immediately. Otto Pfluger built two cotton gins between 1904 and 1909 and then an ice factory. His brother H.H. Pfluger opened the Sky Dome Theater in 1913 — a movie house that ran until 1928. The Pfluger sons built the town into a genuine small-city commercial center serving the surrounding farms.

In the early 20th century, during the Jim Crow era, a small African-American community was established just west of Pflugerville. A local farmer named La Rue Noton subdivided a portion of his land for purchase by Black workers, platting it as the Colored Addition to Pflugerville — a six-block area on the north side of W. Pecan Street between 1st and 2nd Streets. Two churches and a school followed: St. Mary’s Missionary Baptist Church (1914) and St. Matthew’s Missionary Baptist Church (ca. 1920). An original school built in 1910 burned in 1925 and was replaced by a two-room Rosenwald School in 1928. St. Matthew’s and the Rosenwald School are no longer extant, but St. Mary’s Missionary Baptist Church remains an active congregation. The old Pflugerville Gym — a WPA project from 1934, home to the Pflugerville Panthers — still stands at 700 W. Pecan Street and is separately NRHP-eligible as a WPA-era educational facility.

The historic core of Old Town Pflugerville — the area along E. and W. Pecan Street (FM 1325) between Railroad Avenue and 5th Street — retains a substantial concentration of late-19th- and early-20th-century residences and commercial buildings. The East Main Street Historic District at 111–117 E. Main Street is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The surrounding residential area (Folk Victorian, Queen Anne, and Craftsman bungalow styles, ca. 1870–1935) has been proposed as a Pflugerville Residential Historic District. Key surviving landmarks include the 1875 William Pfluger House (RTHL/OTHM) and the 1913 Bohls House — now the Heritage House Museum.

The community stayed under 700 people through 1980. Then Austin’s economy exploded. Land was cheaper north of town. The highway was good. The school district was decent. By the late 1980s, Pflugerville had gone from 662 people (1980) to an estimated 3,900, earning the fastest-growing designation. Today the population exceeds 70,000.

Historic Architecture

The 2018 TCHC survey documented Old Town Pflugerville as having one of the densest concentrations of late-19th/early-20th-century vernacular and Queen Anne architecture in Travis County. The East Main Street Historic District (NRHP-listed) covers 111–117 E. Main Street — four early commercial buildings from ca. 1909–1912, including the former Farmers State Bank of Pflugerville. A proposed Pflugerville Residential Historic District would encompass the Old Town grid, with over 60 contributing properties ranging from ca. 1870 Folk Victorian cottages to 1935 Minimal Traditional houses. Notable individual resources:

  • Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church (500 Immanuel Rd, 1929) — Gothic Revival; OTHM; one of the most architecturally distinctive buildings in the survey area
  • Bohls House / Heritage House Museum (901 Old Austin-Hutto Rd, 1913) — Queen Anne; RTHL/OTHM; open to the public
  • William Pfluger House (1512 E. Pflugerville Pkwy, 1875) — vernacular; RTHL/OTHM; one of the oldest surviving structures in town
  • Albert Pfluger House (300 N. Fifth St, ca. 1890) — Queen Anne; individually NRHP-eligible
  • Pflugerville Gym (700 W. Pecan St, 1934) — WPA construction; NRHP-eligible under criteria A and C

See also: Travis County Historic Structures for the full inventory.

Local Legend

Pflugerville’s old-timers will tell you that the town was once almost renamed. In the 1890s, when the post office was being established, a local merchant argued that the name “Pflugerville” would be impossible for postal workers and merchants from elsewhere in Texas to spell, pronounce, or remember. He proposed the town be called “Farmersville” or simply “Creek Town.” The German families, reportedly, showed up to the relevant public meeting in force and refused. The name stayed. The merchant’s store, locals say, received mysteriously short postal deliveries for years afterward. This story is apocryphal but feels true.

Insider Tips

  • Lake Pflugerville is a good addition to a northeast Austin circuit — kayak rentals, fishing, a loop trail
  • The area around Old Town Pflugerville (on Pecan St.) has historic buildings from the late 1800s
  • Pronounce it “FLOO-ger-vil” — two syllables for Pfluger, not three; the P is silent

Annual & Seasonal Events

Spring (Mar–May)

  • Deutschen Pfest (May) — celebrates Pflugerville’s German heritage with food, music, and beer; one of the few Central Texas festivals explicitly tied to German settlement history

Summer (Jun–Aug)

  • Lake Pflugerville summer season — the 180-acre reservoir is the town’s primary recreation anchor; peak use June–August

Fall (Sep–Nov)

  • PfISD Homecoming (October) — the school district’s homecoming season anchors community identity in a city that has grown so fast that shared civic occasions are especially valuable; games, parades, and neighborhood gatherings across a district serving 25,000+ students

Winter (Dec–Feb)

  • Pflugerville Holiday Parade (December) — seasonal parade and celebration often centered on the Old Town area; the event brings together the historic German Lutheran heritage community and the enormous newer population that has turned a quiet farming village into a city of 70,000

Logistics

  • Tour stop duration: 45 minutes–1 hour
  • Parking: Free parking at Lake Pflugerville park
  • Nearby stops: Round Rock (15 min north), Manor (10 min south), Austin (15 min south)

Sources

  • Texas State Historical Association Handbook: tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/pflugerville-tx
  • Travis County Historical Commission / Hicks & Company, Review and Consolidation of Previous Travis County Survey Reports, February 2018
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