Fly Gap

FLY GAP, TEXAS . Fly Gap is a half mile west of Ranch Road 1900 and twelve miles northeast of Mason in northeastern Mason County. According to legend, the community got its name from an incident involving a band of settlers who were pursuing some Indians as they retreated from a raid somewhere south of the Llano River. The settlers hid in ambush in a gap in the Kothmann Mountains and tied their horses in a nearby thicket. The outcome of the ambush is unknown, but when the men returned to their mounts, they found that the horses had been badly bitten by horseflies, and the spot was consequently named Fly Gap. By May 1883 about a dozen families were already in the area. In October 1884 Samuel L. Fleming and Diedrich Kothmann deeded a parcel of land for a combination church and school, which was built at a site supposedly two miles southwest of where the posse had waited for the Indians. Miss Belle Starkey was the first teacher there. This first building burned in the spring of 1917, and a new school was subsequently built. In October 1884 a post office was established in the Fleming home west of the school, and Sam Fleming was the first postmaster. This office was discontinued in 1898. Jacob Oehler opened one of the community's first stores in 1895. In the late 1970s the Fly Gap Community Club, organized in 1932, had been using the old school as a community center for a number of years. In 1980 a town cemetery and school building were at the site.