Antioch Colony was a rural farming community formed during Reconstruction by formerly enslaved African Americans in north Hays County along Onion Creek. In 1859, Anglo businessman Joseph F. Rowley purchased 490 acres there and began selling parcels to former slaves in 1870 at $5.00 per acre. In many deeds, Rowley stipulated that the African American owners could not sell their property without his consent, a restriction he rescinded after moving to Missouri in 1893, though the document was not filed in Hays County until 1913. In 1874, community residents Elias and Clarisa Bunton donated land for a school and church, and that building served as the school until 1939. The school was moved to Black Colony Road the following year and served Antioch until students were integrated into the Buda school system in 1961. The community also organized Baptist and Methodist churches, along with an active Masonic Lodge and Order of the Eastern Star chapter. Antioch remained an active farm community through the 1930s and 1940s, but by the 1950s many residents had left in search of better jobs and the community was nearly abandoned. Beginning in the 1970s, former residents and their descendants began returning, with some repurchasing ancestral land, and the community continues to grow.