Round Rock, Texas (unnamed copywriting)

Round Rock, Texas, and inner ring suburb of Austin located in Travis County Texas, is a town on the rise. Like many other Austin suburbs, Round Rock benefited greatly from Austin's population explosion of the late 1970s. However, unlike the rest of the Austin suburbs, Round Rock used Austin's population explosion to create an even stronger one in their own town.

Round Rock has had a banner year. Its praises have been sung by numerous publications and its growth continues to increase. Last August, Round Rock was named as the seventh best small-town to live in of America. This would have given Round Rock more than enough cause for bragging within Texas, but compounding the victory was the fact that no other town in Texas even made the list.

The basis for this decision was the record numbers that Round Rock was showing. The average median income within the town was a towering $85,000, a considerably higher amount than the rest of Texas's average. Along with the high level of median income was an incredibly high level of new job growth. At just over a 45%, Round Rock's new job rate soared over the national average of only 18.8%.

Later, in July of 2009, Round Rock garnered more awards. It was in this month that CNN named the city the second fastest growing city in the nation. The city's rate of population growth, over 8 1/2%, can easily be witnessed by watching the historic trends in the census poll. In 2000, the town had a population of just under 80,000 people. However, by 2008, it already reached a level of population of over 150,000 people. However, it was not always this way.

Round Rock had humble beginnings. It was started as a small community on Brushy Creek in 1851. The location of the town was chosen because it was next to an area of the Creek that contained a large round rock in the middle of the creek that made fording the creek extremely easy. Because of its ease of crossing, this became one of the first destinations on the Chisholm Trail, and as a result brought in numerous settlers.

The town grew into a frontier town and had its share of "Wild West" stories, but the best known is that of train robber Sam Bass. It was in the town of Round Rock that Bass was eventually hunted down and avoided capture with the epic gunfight known as "the Sam Bass Shoot out". The shoot out is still remembered, and is in fact reenacted annually in Round Rock's downtown area.