Montopolis, Austin, Texas

Indigenous people lived in and traveled through the area for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans. El Camino Real de los Tejas, established by the Spanish along prehistoric Native American trails, skirted the eastern edge of today's Montopolis neighborhood fording the Colorado east of today's Montopolis Bridge.[8]

The founder of the Republic of Texas era townsite of Montopolis was Jesse Cornelius Tannehill (1797-1863).[9] A recent though often repeated misconception is that Tannehill's Montopolis was founded in 1830; Tannehill's time in Texas is well documented showing this is not so.[10] Tannehill and family came to Texas in 1828 first settling near Caney in Matagorda County. As a member of Stephen F. Austin’s “Little Colony,”[11] they soon moved to Bastrop. In 1836 during the Texas war for independence, when Mexican forces threatened settlements along the Colorado, the Tannehills and other families fled Bastrop in wagons eastward towards Nacogdoches along the Old San Antonio Road. This evacuation was referred to as the Runaway Scrape. Following the war, the Tannehills lived in Huntsville and later in La Grange.[12]

In 1839, Tannehill, his wife, Jane L. (Richardson) Tannehill (1803-1855), their children, and possibly several enslaved persons[13], moved to a headright of 4,428 acres on the Colorado River, from which 800 acres were surveyed for the town tract. A deed recorded July 2, 1839, established the location of a platted town on the left (north) bank of the Colorado river. Tannehill never owned any part of the Santiago del Valle grant south of the Colorado, nor was he in any way responsible for development or settlement south of the Colorado River, where the current community of Montopolis is located.[14][15][16]     

The ambitious settlement was named Montopolis ("mont" Latin for "mountain" and "polis" Greek for "city"). Several families settled in the community. James Smith (1790-1845) was likely the first settler in 1838. His 1841 home is preserved on Boggy Creek Farm.

Tannehill began laying out Montopolis before Edward Burleson laid out nearby Waterloo, which was renamed Austin upon its selection as the republic of Texas' seat of government. There is evidence that Montopolis, as well as the town of Comanche[17], were also in the running for this honor. The site selection commissioners chose the Waterloo location one mile from Spring Creek (Barton Springs).

Page 500 from the original Bastrop County (Tex.), County Clerk’s Office, plat of the town of Montopolis, Deed Book C. The deed records "...[the] Town of Montopolis, including the adjacent farming lands, containing in all eight hundred acres, it being a part of the Tannahill (sic) League ...". Notice drawing depicting Colorado River's eastern flow: as recorded, the entirety of the Montopolis town tract was contained within 800 acres of the Tannehill's headright league on the north side of the Colorado River. The deed was recorded July 2, 1839.[18]

The Montopolis venture died within two years of its conception. By 1841, the partnerships that established Montopolis were dissolved, and the land was sold. Proximity to the growing capital of Austin and the community of Govalle likely contributed to the end of the original Montopolis. Remnants of Montopolis place names persisted in the area of the original town tract into the 20th century, for example Montopolis Drive-In Theater and Howard’s Montopolis Nursery.

The earliest map with the place name "Montopolis" south of the Colorado seems to be a USGS 1894 topographic map of Austin and Travis County referencing the "Montopolis Ferry", i.e. the ferry to Montopolis.[19] But that same year, 1894, a GLO map shows small communities along the Colorado such as Del Valle, St. Elmo, Garfield, Webberville, and Hornsby, but the community of Montopolis south of the river is absent; an indication the place name had not made a transition to the south yet.[20] A post office named Montopolis was later established in 1897 at the ferry location.[21] In time the community that developed around the post office and this key river crossing began to adopt the Montopolis name. When the City of Austin started annexation of that community in the early 1950s, memory of the original townsite began to fade.

After the Civil War, the area south of the Colorado became a freedmen's town, home to newly freed slaves who worked as sharecroppers.[22] A post office named Montopolis was established in 1897 with Jefferson D. Randolph as postmaster; the post office was discontinued April 10, 1902.[23] The Montopolis population was 142 in 1900.

In the early 20th century, the neighborhood saw a large influx of Mexican immigrants. Between 1919 and 1922, San Jose Cemetery (Cemeterio San José) was established on the 700th block of Montopolis Drive as a Mexican and Mexican-American cemetery.[24] An additional section is located off of Hoeke Lane south of Ben White Boulevard.[25]

San Jose Cemetery

Despite the close proximity, Austin waited until 1952 to partially annex Montopolis, and it wasn't fully annexed until the 1970s. The working-class neighborhood has long been one of the poorest in Austin, with about two of every five residents living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census. Educational attainment also lags far behind the city average — in 2000, 53 percent of Montopolis residents more than 25 years old didn't have a high school diploma.

Given Austin's tremendous growth, the Montopolis neighborhood has experienced increased development in the 21st Century. The community is located in a strategic location in Austin — adjacent to the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and along two major highways: Texas State Highway 71 and U.S. Route 183. In 2005, the City of Austin was working on finalizing a Master Plan for the entire East Riverside Drive corridor, from the East Riverside-Oltorf Combined Planning Area to Montopolis to ABIA.[26]

An increase in development has spurred fears of gentrification. Although activists stopped a zoning change in early 2014 that would have allowed building condos instead of duplexes,[27] the condos were approved in late 2014.[28] As of 2015, Google announced that their Google Fiber internet service will be available in the area.[29]