Carbon-izer Presents Bastrop, Texas - Highway 71
HIGHWAY 71 IN BASTROP COUNTY

This page covers Highway 71 from FM 214 to Tahitian Drive, covering most of Bastrop County and Bastrop itself, continuing from this page. Highway 71 continues all the way toward Interstate 10 but that won't be covered, at least not for the foreseeable future. It would be a big undertaking, that's for sure! This is the "main drag" of Bastrop featuring most of its commercial base.

Version 6.0 is a major update that strips out the entries east of the Colorado River: L&S Mart, Jack in the Box (east Bastrop), CVS/pharmacy, Buc-ee's, QuikTrip #4128, and Exxon (at Loop 150) and moves them to the other page. It also removes "First National Bank of Brenham" (incorporated into "Planet Fitness"). New entries include: Compass Rose Harvest, Bastrop Christian Outreach Center, Bastrop RV Park, Lost Pines Toyota, McCoy's Building Supply, Club Car Wash, 551 State Highway 71 (Dunkin'), Valero (near Old Austin Highway), CubeSmart Self Storage, O'Reilly Auto Parts, Walgreens, Verizon, 441 State Highway 71 (former Wal-Mart), EZPAWN, Dairy Queen, and Mr. Nab Furniture. Burleson Crossing Shopping Center has been converted into four new entries: Best Buy, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Arby's, and VeraBank. Updated entries include Valero/McDonald's, Exxon (at Hwy. 21, Buc-ee's numbering), Planet Fitness (see above), and Texas Grill Center (minor). Finally, some formatting changes were made and "H-E-B Plus" was retitled to "H-E-B plus!".


FM 214 to FM 1209


Valero/McDonald's / 2850 Highway 71
This combo gas station/McDonald's opened in the mid-2000s (evidence suggests the McDonald's side opened first in 2004, followed by the Chevron gas station/c-store "Fast Break" in very early 2005). Around August 2022, the gas station brand changed to a Valero (within six months the convenience store was rebranded as "Refuel"), and in December 2022 the Valero sign was officially added. The sign was also rotated about 45 degrees clockwise in the process, however, and the entire sign, pole and all, was dismantled by March 2023 for reasons unknown.

Berdoll Pecan Candy & Gift Company / 2626 State Hwy. 71
This gift shop is the business side of a pecan farm in the area. Even when the store is closed, there's a vending machine with pecan pies and Ms. Pearl the Giant Squirrel, installed in late 2011.

Exxon / 2061 State Hwy. 71
This Exxon has been here at least here since the mid-1990s. The tiny canopy was rebuilt around 2011 with a more modern one with additional pumps.

Cedar Creek High School / 793 Union Chapel Road
There's no school zone speed limit but this school (appears to be opened for fall 2009) can get busy around certain times.

Dollar General / 109 River Oaks Drive
This Dollar General opened sometime around 2010 (give or take a year). It has no access off of Highway 71, nor uses it as an address, but it does face the road.

Valero / 1525 Highway 71 West
While this was probably a Diamond Shamrock prior to the mid-2000s, this Valero featured Sac-N-Pac when it opened in 2000. When it came to converting to Stripes, Sac-N-Pac dragged its feet (still a SnP as of December 2017, long after the others had converted) but eventually did convert in 2018. It was presumably slated to become a 7-Eleven after 2018 when Stripes was sold to 7-Eleven, but by January 2022, however, it had disconnected from Stripes/7-Eleven and had become a generic "Food Mart".


FM 1209 to TEXAS STATE HIGHWAY 21 (WEST)


Valero / 1481 State Hwy. 71
This opened as Corner Store Market (Corner Store's expanded store format, with a different logo) and was a Valero but de-emphasized (the Corner Store logo was on the canopy, and the canopy was green and white). It opened in November 2016 but by fall 2018 it was a Circle K, with more emphasis on the Valero branding.

Compass Rose Harvest / 118 Stephen F. Austin Blvd.
This charter school was opened in fall 2022 at the site of the failed "The Shoppes at Colony Village", which was built in 2009 (not 2013 as Loopnet suggests) but never had any permanent tenants.

Exxon / 1273 Highway 71 West
This was in fact built as a Buc-ee's and operated as such from 1998 to 2000 (Buc-ee's #11) when the famed convenience store chain was still small and using other gas brands. It hasn't been a Buc-ee's in over two decades but it's still an Exxon.

As of November 2022 it has a "Cooper's Express" fried chicken program.

TEXAS STATE HIGHWAY 21 (WEST) to EDWARD BURLESON LANE / TEXAS STATE HIGHWAY 304

Jack in the Box / 111 Highway 21 West
Jack in the Box #925 was opened in summer 2001 (after the demise of Buc-ee's across the street) and served as Bastrop's only Jack in the Box for nearly a decade.

Andre's Automotive / 1177 Highway 71 West
Until 2015, Andre's was on the old right of way of Highway 21 (Mt. Olive Road closer to 21), but a reconstruction of the creek removed the bridge to that section.

Bastrop Christian Outreach Center / 1096 State Hwy. 71
This church has been here since the early 2000s but the congregation has existed since the early 1980s.

Bastrop RV Park / 689 State Hwy. 71
There's not a lot to find on Bastrop RV Park. It's been here since at least the late 1990s, as a hybrid RV park/trailer park (the trailer park portion was closer to FM 20) and a few trailers still exist on the property. The park was built along an abandoned right of way that curves directly from FM 20 to Highway 71 and until construction of the frontage road in late 2011/early 2012, it was still driveable.

Lost Pines Toyota / 806 State Hwy 71 West
This represents about the point where the addressing changes, with the even numbers being on the south side of the road. Lost Pines Toyota opened in 2012.

McCoy's Building Supply / 801 State Highway 71 West
McCoy's has quietly been operating here since 1996 and seems at home in the west Bastrop retail district.

Best Buy / 761 Highway 71 West
Best Buy opened in summer 2009 (when a lot of companies were scaling back or closing) and is the southwest anchor and closest one to the highway of Burleson Crossing. I've archived a PDF of Burleson Crossing here where you can see what it looked like circa 2018. Directly to the north of Best Buy is Old Navy (767 State Hwy 71 West) opened sometime around January 2022. It was formerly Staples, which opened in January 2011 but closed in February 2021, presumably a 10-year lease that they didn't want to maintain. On that subject as well, the directory shows Orange Leaf, a frozen yogurt shop, at 747 Highway 71 W. Ste. A600. It opened in September 2015 but closed in 2021.

Academy Sports + Outdoors / 761 State Hwy. 71
Academy was part of a second phase that was built around 2014-2015. (Academy opened in 2014). The empty space in the map linked in the "Best Buy" entry is now HomeGoods. It opened in July 2019 (I don't think anything else actually opened. Likely something was to open but then went out of business before formal plans were made.)

Arby's / 711 Highway 71 West
This one of the earlier Carl's Jr. stores in their ill-fated late 2000s/early 2010s Texas expansion was located here and opened in early 2009. Unlike others that later opened in Houston and beyond, it also featured a Green Burrito co-brand. It closed in 2018, replaced by an Arby's, part of the massive downscale of the chain that had the chain exiting most of Texas; today, the few Carl's Jr. stores in Texas are found in truck stops.

VeraBank / 701 State Highway 71
In another difference from the directory, IBC Bank (opened c. 2009) closed by spring 2022 but reopened as VeraBank by August 2022.

Chili's / 734 State Hwy. 71
This Chili's restaurant opened in summer 2002 (see the link in the Home Depot entry below).

Panda Express / 728 State Highway 71 West
The pad site next to Chili's and in front of The Home Depot was built and opened as a Panda Express in early 2011.

The Home Depot / 525 State Highway 71 West
A bit about The Home Depot when it opened back in 2002 can be seen here on BastropTexas.net.


EDWARD BURLESON LANE / TEXAS STATE HIGHWAY 304 to TEXAS LOOP 150 / CHILDERS DRIVE


Woodland Village / 696 State Highway 71
This strip center was built in 2005, which a current PDF is available here (archived from here). The building on the far left is currently, as of this writing, Morelia Mexican Grill. In the late 2000s and early 2010s it was Nancy's Steak House, then Los Cabos Mexican Grill by 2015. Dickey's Barbecue Pit was also here at one time as well. According to this page, Dickey's Barbecue Pit was here from 2012 to 2014, then again in 2015, and briefly reopened in 2016. This seems to be mostly correct, it seems to have operated from 2012 to 2014, then again in 2016-2017, from what I can piece together.

Taco Cabana / 698 State Highway 71
Taco Cabana has been here since late 2005. It is considered part of Woodland Village (see entry above).

Club Car Wash / 741 Old Austin Hwy.
Formerly known as Rapid Express Car Wash until 2022 and with an Old Austin Highway address (from attaching to Texas Boot Company's parking lot, despite having no direct access to Old Austin Highway) is this large car wash facility, built in 2019.

Texas Boot Company / 733 Old Austin Hwy.
This building was formerly 735 Old Austin Highway and was built in 1988 for Griesenbeck's, a local furniture store. Here's an advertisement for their out of business sale when it closed in 2007. From what I can tell, "Sears Authorized Dealer Store" opened in 2005 (Bastrop had a smaller catalog store that disappeared in the early 1990s when the catalog went away) in suite "B" of 735 suggests that perhaps Griesenbeck's downscaled prior to its closure. Texas Boot Company opened in late 2010 to replace Griesenbeck's (renumbered to 733), and Sears closed several years later (sometime in the late 2010s). The Authorized Dealer Stores became Sears Hometown shortly after it opened, but it never had this on signage.

551 State Highway 71
This was built in 2015 with two tenants, MattressPro (laterMattress Firm "Total Markdown", a moniker that stuck around until 2020) and a Dunkin' Donuts (with Baskin-Robbins co-brand). Mattress Firm and Dunkin' still occupy the space.

Southside Market & Barbeque / 534 Highway 71
Based out of Elgin and bragging to be the oldest continuously operated barbecue restuarant anywhere (1882), the Bastrop location was Southside's first branch location and opened in November 2014.

Valero / 521 Highway 71 West
This was an unbranded gas station previously (with a red and yellow color scheme, but not a former Shell) and became Valero between November 2018 and March 2021. The gas station dates back to the 1960s in form or another.

Chevron / 516 State Hwy. 71
Opened in December 1993 (per filings, though probably opened in 1/94), this Chevron's big sign can be seen from off the main highway, almost as if they had the foresight to realize that the divided highway it opened off of would be a freeway eventually, and within a decade, it was.

Wendy's / 514 Highway 71 West
For some reason, I remembered the Wendy's in Bastrop having a salad bar, one of the first and last I saw to do so. But Wendy's began phasing out salad bars in late 1997 through 1998; however, the Wendy's opened around 1996-1997 and did have a salad bar, just before it was phased out.

Shell / 513 State Hwy. 71
This gas station has been a Shell since at least 2003 (likely a Texaco before that) and was originally built in the mid-1980s.

CubeSmart Self Storage / 510 State Highway 71
This two-story climate controlled self storage facility opened in 2020.

O'Reilly Auto Parts / 505 State Hwy 71 West
O'Reilly Auto Parts opened around 2002 as part of the development that added H-E-B.

H-E-B plus! / 104 North Hasler Blvd.
The de facto supermarket in Bastrop. I remember when this was first built back in 2003, with the new H-E-B directly next to the old one it had replaced across from Hasler. The old H-E-B (see "First National Bank of Brenham" below) was 50,000 square feet, which seemed to me a modest size, at least according to the ones I had visited in Waco. The frontage of the new H-E-B (which opened in May 2003) was similar, but it was much deeper, clocking in at 90,000 square feet. In November 2014 it finished an expansion, rebranding it as an H-E-B Plus (at about 119,000 square feet).

Walgreens / 504 State Hwy. 71
This Walgreens was built in 2005, introducing the storied drug store brand to the Bastrop area.

501 Highway 71 West
This building houses both a First National Bank of Brenham branch (the headquarters is described below) and a Starbucks (opened March 30 2007). The building appears to have been expanded in 2007 to add the Starbucks (suite B). It doesn't appear that the Starbucks connects to the bank on the inside.

Prosperity Bank / 499 State Hwy. 71 West
Surprisingly, the original H-E-B did appear to have gas pumps even in the late 1990s, and after H-E-B left, this was torn down for Lost Pines Bank, which had an old location behind 501 Hwy. 71 West and was torn down for the H-E-B in 2003. The new location was acquired by Franklin Bank in 2004 and by 2008 (the year that Franklin Bank, among others, failed), had dropped the Lost Pines Bank name entirely. Prosperity Bancshares purchased the defunct Franklin soon after and by 2009 was operating as Prosperity Bank.

Planet Fitness / 487 State Highway 71 West
This was the original address of H-E-B from approx. 1987 to 2003 when it moved to its current location. After its closure, the left side of the building had the front of half ripped out to make a new two-story building (the rest of the building extending back is the original one-story building) for First National Bank of Brenham with the new address of 489 State Hwy. 71 West. The other half was redone with a new facade and opened in late 2005 or very early 2006 as Bealls (which moved from a nearby location, having been there since 1997). Bealls closed in 2020 and was replaced by Planet Fitness opened not too long after its demise.

McDonald's / 496 Highway 71 West
This long-standing McDonald's has an interesting history before unfortunately being sanitized a number of years ago. We'll hopefully get to talk about it sometime in more detail.

Schlotzsky's / 492 Highway 71 West
Schlotzsky's Deli (as it was known back then) opened in 1997 as part of the construction around the new Wal-Mart Supercenter. In the late 2010s, Schlotzsky's would attempt to rebrand as Schlotzsky's Austin Eatery, but while the Bastrop location got one of the first re-dos under that theming, the chain backed off on full rebranding. Despite this, the Schlotzsky's still features the "Schlotzsky's Austin Eatery" brand.

Verizon / 490 State Highway 71 W.
Cartwright's Bar-B-Q moved here in 1998 from downtown and as of 2007, was still here, despite having reduced visibility when the highway was reconstructed. It finally closed down around 2010 and was replaced with its current tenant in 2011.

490B Highway 71 West
Sadly, while we do have a page for the old Payless, it's all night shots. It too opened in 1997 and closed in early 2019 when the chain went under.

Walmart / 488 Highway 71 West
Walmart moved here to a new "Wal-Mart Supercenter" in February 1997 from its old ten-year-old space about where Tractor Supply Company is today. From its construction to 2011, it had a McDonald's inside which co-existed with the store nearby.

441 State Highway 71
This was originally a Wal-Mart, which operated from 1987 to 1995. For some reason, the store as Wal-Mart had an even number on the north side of the road, which isn't the way it's done now. Tractor Supply Company moved in one half in 1996, the other half became Bastrop Medical Center (by 2013 this was Seton Health Plaza). By 2018 Seton Health Plaza had downscaled to the center third of the former store (the rest was now Harbor Freight Tools) and by 2022 had exited entirely and replaced with Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree uses the address of 439 State Highway 71, though this is not a holdover from the medical center.

Whataburger / 401 State Hwy. 71 West
It appears the original address was 419 State Hwy. 71 West before it was renumbered, but the Whataburger here has existed at this location since 1992.

EZPAWN / 311 Highway 71 West
EZPAWN has been in this unremarkable metal building since 1994.

Burger King / Denny's / 300 Highway 71 West
A most curious hybrid opened in early 2018. The Burger King and Denny's here are linked together by an interior hallway (the restrooms are Denny's, they have longer hours), though they have separate dining rooms, kitchen, and staff. The previous building here (before it was Burger King) held a restaurant called China Chef (1991-2014).


TEXAS LOOP 150 / CHILDERS DRIVE to Colorado River

On the east side of the Burger King/Denny's sits Childers Drive (a suburban street) but the north part is Loop 150. This goes into Bastrop's downtown as Chestnut Street, which loops back into the Bastrop downtown as Chestnut Street (after briefly serving as Loop 150), then continues east all the way into Bryan as Highway 21.

Shell / 212 Hwy. 71 West
This Shell has been here since at least 2008 (as a Shell, the station itself goes back to the 1980s). Its convenience store is currently known as "Apple Grocery" and the roasted chicken restaurant "El Norteño Ricos Pollos Asados" is located inside.

Vitalogy Skincare / 208 State Hwy. 71
Part of an Austin-based dermatology group, this was previously a bank. There is evidence to suggest that this actually started out in the mid-1980s as Nan Olsen's Bastrop Pit Bar-B-Q Restaurant (it closed sometime in the early/mid 1990s) and by 1997 had been renovated into a bank. By 2008 it was operating as First State Bank by 2008 though in the early 2010s it closed and was replaced by Vitalogy by early 2016.

Dairy Queen / 112 State Hwy. 71
This Dairy Queen has been here since at least the late 1970s and is still bannered as "Dairy Queen" (rather than "DQ").

Billy's Pit BBQ / 110 Hwy. 71 West
Tax records indicate this barbecue restaurant has been operating here since 1982. Contemporary reviews seem to rank the restaurant favorably, even if the location is a bit of a dive.

Pizza Hut / 107 State Hwy. 71 West
The de facto pizza delivery chain in Bastrop from opening in 1975 to 2004 (when Domino's opened), this Pizza Hut is still here in its original building (with modifications). It received a black repaint in the late 2000s, and in 2022 became branded as a "Pizza Hut Classic" with the old logo appearing back on the (still black) roof.

Tropicana Motel / 105 Hwy. 71 West
This simple motel has been here since 1975 (at least) and for years maintained an outdoor swimming pool. Sometime between November 2019 and March 2021 it was demolished and replaced with a basketball court.

Mr. Nab Furniture / 104 Highway 71
This was "New Hope Christian Store" as of 2011 and Cornerstone Total Fitness before that (c. 2007). It appears Cornerstone was the successor to "The Bastrop Gym" which originally opened in 1993 in what was Bartsch Tire Company in the 1980s and a gas station before that. Mr. Nab has been here since 2016. This has been placed after Tropicana Motel because of where it is.

Texas Grill Center / 103 Hwy. 71 West
Featuring the same name and logo of the restaurant next door, this was originally an Exxon from the mid-1980s to 2013. After it closed, it reopened in 2015 as Lock Drug Health Mart, a drug store/pharmacy which had relocated from downtown. It tore down the canopy and the pumps but reused the sign structures. By 2019, Lock Drug Health Mart was closed, with the former signage now for the restaurant next door and marketed as retail space (though it has yet to be retenanted).

Texas Grill Restaurant / 101 Highway 71 West
"Texas Grill #2" has been here since the mid-1970s. At the Colorado River, the road changes to Highway 71 West and changes numbering again.

Sonic Drive-In / 103 Perkins Street
When the highway was rebuilt in the mid-2000s, the Sonic became harder to access (the ramp access was not favorable), even after a late-2000s rebuild that took out the building to the north of it. The restaurant was originally built in 1986.

River Basin RV Resort / 98 State Hwy. 71
This used to be known as the Bastrop River RV Park when it was built in the early 2000s and served under the KOA brand (Kampgrounds of America) from around 2014 to 2021 ("Bastrop/Colorado River KOA").

This is as far as we go here. A quick jog up 150 is Highway 21, where we continue east toward Caldwell and Bryan.


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