SMETANA, TEXAS. Smetana is on U.S. Highway 190/State Highway 21 six miles west of Bryan in Brazos County. It was settled by a number of Bohemian families in the early 1880s. A small store and a school were in operation by 1885. A post office opened in the community in 1896 and continued in operation until 1906. In 1941 Smetana had four businesses, two schools, two cemeteries (one for blacks, one for whites), and a number of scattered dwellings. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s the population was listed at fifty. It was shown as twenty in 1962 and eighty in 1990. The population expansion was due in part to the growth of the Bryan-College Station area and Texas A&M University. The Texas A&M Research and Extension Center (Old Bryan Army Airfield) is located one mile west of Smetana. In 1980 the town had three businesses, two community halls, and two cemeteries. By the late 1980s it had two restaurants and a grocery store. In 2000 the population was eighty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Glenna Fourman Brundidge, Brazos County History: Rich Past-Bright Future (Bryan, Texas: Family History Foundation, 1986). Elmer Grady Marshall, History of Brazos County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1937).

Richard Brown