The hometown hospitality of three historic cities, beautiful recreation areas and incredible entertainment venues combine with a business-friendly culture, great infrastructure, a community college, a talented workforce and dedicated partners – all in a beautiful setting. Bastrop County boasts an expanding industrial park in Bastrop, location on a four-lane highway between Austin and Houston and proximity to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Austin Community College has a campus in Elgin. Both Bastrop and Elgin, each with population growth of 27% between 2007 and 2017, are communities primed for business expansion. Smithville, located in a still-rural section of eastern Bastrop County, was the first Film Friendly Community designated by the Texas Film Commission. The county also has several key components of the region's biosciences industry, including units of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Center— the Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research and the Virginia Harris Cockrell Cancer Research Center — as well as life sciences companies such as Agilent Technologies and The Coghlan Group.

Sources: Texas Comptroller for retail sales; Texas Workforce Commission for labor force, unemployment, businesses, employees, and salaries; Texas Education Agency for public school enrollment and graduates; ESRI for 2021 demographic estimates; and U.S. Census Bureau for all other data.