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Bend, Texas

Bend is an unincorporated community in Lampasas and San Saba Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. It is located on Farm to Market Road 580 at a horseshoe-shaped bend in the Colorado River. The Lampasas County portion of Bend is part of the Killeen–Temple–Fort Hood Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Settlement of the area began in the mid-1800s. In 1854, the community took the name Schleicher's Bend, after an early settler Gustav Schleicher. By 1856, it was called McAnelly's Bend after Robert Daugherty McAnelly, a landowner on the Lampasas side of the river.

When the application for a post office on the San Saba side of the river was made in the late 1870s, the names Little Breeches and Bend were submitted; the Bend Post Office opened in 1879 and has continuously operated ever since.

Bend had a population of approximately 400 in 1890. For most of the twentieth century, however, the community recorded 100 to 125 residents.

Jumbo Hollis

In the early 1900s, extensive pecan orchards were planted in the area. By mid-century, the Hollis native pecan had become the region's cash crop.

Bend boosters consider the Jumbo Hollis, a tree whose name is derived from its unusually large fruit and its first owner - Thomas I. Hollis, to be the world's most productive pecan tree. When other native pecan trees averaged 70 to 80 nuts per pound, Jumbo's averaged 33. At the 1904 World's Fair, Jumbo Hollis pecans won the bronze medal for being the largest displayed.

The tree's record year was 1919, when it produced 1,015 pounds of nuts.

Education

The San Saba County portion of Bend is served by the San Saba Independent School District, while the Lampasas Independent School District serves the Lampasas County portion of the community.