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Ding Dong Is Gone.
By: Alan Nelson     Posted: Tuesday, June 7, 2011 9:40 pm
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Ding Dong Is Gone. | Ding Dong, Hostess, chocolate cake, dead witch, Munchkinland, Texas, Texas Business, Lampasas River, Killeen, Bell County, Zulis, Killeen, Silas Marner, Lantern yard, George Eliot,

Ding Dong exists on maps, but can't be found.

No, I’m not talking about the chocolate cake made by Hostess.  

And no, I’m not talking about the dead witch in Munchkinland.

I’m talking about Ding Dong, Texas.

Quite often I run across the name of a Texas town for the first time, despite a lifetime in Texas.

The latest was Ding Dong.  The name alone made it a certain trip, and I had business nearby.

So I went with the person who informed me of the existence of Ding Dong.  According to the Texas Handbook, is on the Lampasas River eight miles south of Killeen in southwestern Bell County.  

“In 1979 it had a church and several scattered dwellings, and in 1990 and 2000 it had a population of twenty-two,” the entry states.  Several other sources said the name originated from the Bell brothers, Bert and Zulis, who ran a store which had the picture of bells ringing on their sign.

We arrived at the Lampasas River eight miles south of Killeen.  We looked. And we looked.

No Ding Dong.  New roads.  In fact, almost everything looked less than 20 years old.   If Ding Dong still is there, we missed all its traces. Despite the community's existence on Google Maps, the years appear to have swept the town away.

It reminded me of Silas Marner returning to his old home, Lantern Yard, to resolve major grievances of his youth.  When he arrives, he finds no one knows what happened to the former residents of Lantern Yard, which has been replaced with buildings and factories. The graveyard, the old home, and all his friends and neighbors disappeared.  

 Ding Dong is gone.
 
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