Someone lives in Florence, TX…I didn’t know of Florence, TX…I looked at Florence, TX on the map…long story short there’s a town called Ding Dong and it lives an hour north of Austin. Almost to Killeen. Between I-35 and U.S. 183 (that’s a big gap).
I feel a little guilty giggling about the name of a town—people are from there, people presumably have some local Ding Dong pride—but I mean, the place is called Ding Dong. If you don’t want me giggling, you’re going to have to change the name.
First, yes, let’s add it to the list of places in the greater Austin area that sound like phallic nicknames and/or euphemisms (among others: Round Rock, Dripping Springs, Hornsby Bend, Jonah). Second, yes, the name evidently originated because the first settlers’ last names were “Bell,” and Bill Bryson has mentioned the town in a book (or something else Bill Bryson wrote). Third, no, I can’t find census data surrounding Ding Dong because the website’s only letting me look up towns with 5,000 or more people, and as of 2000, Ding Dong had 22. Fourth, no, Ding Dong’s unincorporated. What’s the chief industry? I’m gonna guess something agricultural.
Ding Dong, Texas is a town. Maybe not legally, because of the unincorporated part, but in the real sense. Even if the Census Bureau won’t give me information about it.
