BAINVILLE, TEXAS. Bainville, on State Highway 72 seven miles southwest of Kenedy in southwest Karnes County, was named after J. L. Bain, who built a store and a cotton gin there in the 1920s. The community was populated largely by Swedes who had moved there from the Del Valle area of Travis County. Elim Lutheran Church and Cadillac School were nearby. From the early 1940s to the early 1960s the settlement had around sixty residents and two businesses. In 1990 only the church, a scattering of farms, and the name remained. The population was eight in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Robert H. Thonhoff, History of Karnes County (M.A. thesis, Southwest Texas State College, 1963).
