Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Driftwood, TX

Driftwood is a census-designated place and unincorporated community in northern Hays County, in the Texas Hill Country along Ranch to Market Road 150, about 24 miles southwest of downtown Austin.

The earliest settlers arrived in the Driftwood area, then known as Liberty Hill, around 1850, but the community was really established in the 1880s as a supply center for neighboring ranches and farms.

Driftwood grew rapidly in the 1880s thanks to access to new rail terminals at nearby Kyle and Buda, gaining a post office, churches, a school, and a cotton gin.

The community nearly vanished more than once: its population fell to a low of just ten people in 1925, recovered to nearly 100 by the middle of the twentieth century, then dwindled to fewer than twenty-five by the 1970s.

Driftwood first appeared as a census-designated place in the 2010 census with 144 people, and its population was 106 at the 2020 census.

Although the Driftwood CDP itself is tiny, its ZIP code 78619 covers a much wider rural area that held 2,467 people at the 2010 census.

Driftwood is famous across Texas as the home of The Salt Lick, the family-owned barbecue restaurant founded in 1967 by Thurman and Hisako Roberts, whose open pits draw visitors from around the world.

Alongside the barbecue, Driftwood has become a Hill Country food-and-drink destination, home to Driftwood Estate Winery, Vista Brewing, Trattoria Lisina, and Salt Lick Cellars.

Driftwood became part of the Buda school district in 1945, and its children have attended Buda-area schools ever since.

The CDP covers about 1.29 square miles at an elevation of roughly 1,060 feet, and its landmarks include a historic Texaco station, the Driftwood United Methodist Church, and a historic cemetery.