New to way south? Start here.

So you bought the house, or signed the lease, and now you live south of Slaughter. Welcome. This is the checklist we wish someone had handed us — every fact below was verified against the official source in August 2026, and where something varies block by block, we say so.

First: it's Menchaca. Also Manchaca. Both are "MAN-shack."

In October 2018, City Council renamed Manchaca Road to Menchaca Road, correcting a long-standing misspelling of Tejano San Jacinto veteran José Antonio Menchaca. A group of business owners sued ("Leave Manchaca Alone"); a judge dismissed the suit in late 2019 and the signs changed. But only the road was renamed — the unincorporated community down FM 1626 is still Manchaca (78652), with an "a". Locals pronounce both the same way: MAN-shack. Say it any other way and you'll be gently corrected.

Utilities to set up

• Electricity: most of the way-south area is Austin Energy. Far-west edges (parts of 78739) can be Pedernales Electric and far-southeast fringes Bluebonnet — check your exact address on their maps.
• Water: Austin Water inside city limits. Shady Hollow has its own MUD, and parts of the southeastern fringe are served by Creedmoor-Maha WSC. Newer 78747 developments (Pilot Knob, Goodnight Ranch) carry MUD or district taxes — read your closing docs.
• Gas: Texas Gas Service.
• Trash & recycling: Austin Resource Recovery — weekly trash and composting, recycling every other week. Look up your day with My Schedule. Bulk and brush pickup is now on-demand: you get up to three collections per year, booked through 311.

For anything city-shaped that's broken — potholes, dead animals, code questions — dial 311 (or 512-974-2000, 24/7). Power out? The Austin Energy outage map is the honest answer.

Getting legal in Texas

• Driver license (DPS): the south office is at 6425 S I-35, Ste 180. Book ahead — walk-ins wait.
• Vehicle registration is a different agency (Travis County Tax Office). Nearest offices: 4011 McKinney Falls Pkwy and 8656 W Hwy 71. New residents have 30 days to register.
• Voter registration also runs through the Tax Office; election info lives at votetravis.gov.

Schools — check the NEW maps

Way south is Austin ISD country: Bowie (4103 W Slaughter Ln) serves Circle C and west 78749, Akins Early College (10701 S 1st St) serves much of 78748/78747, and Crockett Early College takes northern slices. But here's the thing a listing agent may not mention: in November 2025 AISD approved closing ten school buildings and redrew nearly all attendance boundaries, effective 2026–27. Do not trust an old boundary map — check your address on the district's interactive map.

Libraries

Three branches cover us: Menchaca Road (5500 Menchaca Rd), Hampton at Oak Hill (5125 Convict Hill Rd), and Southeast (5803 Nuckols Crossing Rd). A card is free and gets you the whole APL system.

Pools, parks, and one waterfall

The neighborhood pools — Dick Nichols (8011 Beckett Rd), Dittmar (1009 W Dittmar Dr), and Garrison (6001 Menchaca Rd) — are summer-season only, and hours shift year to year, so check the city pools page before loading the car. Year-round swimming means Barton Springs. And McKinney Falls State Park is our backyard state park: $6 a day for adults, kids 12 and under free.

When it rains

This is flash-flood country. Low-water crossings close fast; ATXfloods is the official closure map, and our own weather page keeps a creek check running. "Turn around, don't drown" is not a slogan here, it's the local religion.

Internet and groceries and Saturday mornings

Google Fiber, AT&T Fiber, and Spectrum all operate in Austin, but availability is block-by-block — check your exact address before promising anyone gigabit. For Saturday mornings, the Barton Creek Farmers Market runs year-round, Saturdays 9am–1pm, behind Barton Creek Square Mall.

Things nobody tells you

• Parts of 78747 and 78652 are outside Austin city limits — county rules, different utilities, no city trash service. Buda starts sooner than you think.
• MoPac is signed as Loop 1. Nobody says "Loop 1."
• Shady Hollow looks like a city. It isn't — unincorporated, with its own MUD.

That's the paperwork. For the fun part — where to eat, what's happening this weekend, and what's opening next — that's the rest of this site. And the Thursday dispatch will bring it to your inbox every week.