The following History of Rosanky, Texas is taken from The New Handbook
of Texas published by The Texas State Historical Association
in 1996.
ROSANKY, TEXAS. Rosanky, on
Farm Road 535 eleven miles south of Bastrop in southern Bastrop County, is named
for Ed Rosanky, member of a pioneer Prussian family who settled in the area in
1854. The loosely organized community that grew up in the area was first known
as Snake Prairie. A Snake Prairie school was established in 1868 and a post
office in 1871 with Mrs. S. C. Hutchinson as postmistress. With the coming of
the railroad in the early 1890s, Ed Rosanky donated land for a station and built
a store. The post office, which had been renamed Eagle Branch in 1884 and
discontinued between 1889 and 1891, was renamed Rosanky in 1893. In 1896 Rosanky
had a population of 100, three churches, three general stores (two containing
saloons), a corn mill and gin, a cotton gin, and a blacksmith shop. By 1909 the
settlement was a "thrifty little town" of 250, according to one
contemporary newspaper. The population was reported at 250 during the 1920s,
when the Rosanky area became an oil-testing site. In 1933 the community reported
two schools: a ten-grade, fifty-pupil school and the Ford school for black
children. By that time the population had dropped to 190, where it remained
through the late 1960s, when it took a slight upward swing. The population was
estimated at 210 from 1970 to 1990. The community, settled and developed largely
by people of German extraction, has served as a trading point for surrounding
livestock-raising operations. In the mid-1980s many of its residents commuted to
jobs in Bastrop, Smithville, and Austin.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bastrop Advertiser, Historical Edition,
August 29, 1935. WPA Texas Historical Records Survey, Inventory of the County
Archives of Texas (MS, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at
Austin).
Paula Mitchell Marks
