The Pflugerville area, situated about fifteen miles north of Downtown Austin, was settled in the mid-19th century by German immigrants. The city was incorporated in 1965.
For the first 20 years in the life of the young city, Pflugerville experienced low to moderate growth. Suburban Austin growth in the mid-eighties caused a building boom in Pflugerville. Today, Pflugerville is a community of more than 25,000 residents who have made it home for their families.
Population
Year Population
Current Population Projections 26,111
2002-Mid Year Estimate 21,738
2000 16,335*
1990 4,444*
1980 745*
1970 530*
*Source: US Census Bureau
HISTORY OF PFLUGERVILLE
Located about fifteen miles north of the Colorado River on the eastern edge of the blackland prairies, Pflugerville was founded in 1860 when William Bohls established a general store and post office in his residence, and named the town in honor of Henry Pfluger. Pfluger first arrived in the area in 1849, leaving his German homeland to escape the Prussian War. He first purchased 160 acres of land two miles east of Austin from John Liese, a brother-in-law who had immigrated before him. In 1853, Henry Pfluger exchanged the land for a larger farm about five miles east of present day Pflugerville. There the family lived in a five-room log cabin and raised corn, wheat, rye, beans, sweet potatoes, and sugar cane. They also raised cattle which Henry and his sons drove to market on the Chisholm Trail.
Two additional buildings and a blacksmith shop were added later, but was not until the Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad arrived in 1904 that the town experienced a period of rapid growth. Otto Pfluger, one of Henry Pfluger’s eight sons, built the first gin in 1904, and a second gin was erected in 1909. The town’s prosperity attracted additional business concerns. Otto Pfluger added an ice factory next to his gin, and in 1913, H.H. Pfluger built the Sky Dome Theater which showed motion pictures, to the accompaniment of a player piano, on Friday and Saturday nights. The theater closed in 1928. A weekly newspaper, The Press, was published in Pflugerville from 1907 to 1942.
Residents established a school in 1872 and a Lutheran church in 1875. By the mid-1890s Pflugerville had a population of 250, and within ten years of the arrival of the railroad, the population had doubled to 500 residents. The Depression halted the community’s growth as citizens moved to larger cities to find work. The population continued to decline after World War II, and by 1949, the number of residents in Pflugerville had fallen to 380.
Pflugerville began to grow slowly again in the 1960’s and was incorporated in 1965. The population rose to 452 by 1968 and to 662 by 1980. The Pflugerville Pflag began publication in 1980. From 1980 through 1988, new development in Pflugerville made it the fastest growing community in the state. After a slight slowdown during the recession of the late 1980’s, the tremendous growth resumed again during the 1990’s, which saw the population almost quadruple in size from 4,444 residents in 1990 to 16,335 in 2000.
