Oatmeal, Texas

We emerged from Big Bend Country and West Texas to land on a little ranch in the town of Oatmeal. The 2020 Census put the population of Oatmeal at 20. The town is unincorporated, technically a part of Betram in Burnet Country in the Texas Hill Country outside of Austin.

The town’s claim to fame appears to be the the Oatmeal Festival held each year over Labor Day weekend. There are town offices, a town windmill, at least one cemetery, a water tower painted to look like a can of oatmeal.

At one time, there was a Black section of town, but there’s no trace of it now. Recently, a police officer discovered an overgrown cemetery on the side of a road that was the town’s Black cemetery, but we couldn’t find clear direction to it. There was talk of preservation efforts and, perhaps, the town wants to keep away vandals and souvenir hunters until they can do something.