Volente is a small village in Travis County, Texas, on the north shore of Lake Travis about 20 miles northwest of downtown Austin. The 2020 census counted 561 residents, and the village was incorporated only in 2003, making it one of the youngest municipalities in the Austin area despite a much longer settlement history. A post office was established at Volente in 1886, and the community has carried its name — aside from a stretch in the 1940s and early 1950s when it was known as Dodd City — through more than a century of change. The landscape of Volente was reshaped by the creation of Lake Travis. When Mansfield Dam was completed in 1941, the rising waters of the Colorado River submerged parts of the surrounding valley, and residents relocated to higher ground along the new shoreline. Today the village occupies rugged, wooded Hill Country terrain overlooking the lake, with bluebonnets and other wildflowers coloring the hillsides in spring. The Anderson Mill Museum, overlooking the lake, preserves the area's pioneer and Civil War-era history, including the mill that once produced gunpowder for the Confederacy. Life in Volente is defined by Lake Travis. Boating, fishing, and lakeside living are central to the community, and the village's small size keeps it quiet and residential. Students attend Leander Independent School District, a large district serving northwest Austin and the surrounding Hill Country communities, with schools including the highly regarded Vandegrift High School in the nearby Four Points area. For residents, Volente offers lakefront and hillside living, a village-scale government, and convenient access to the restaurants, employers, and amenities of northwest Austin — a blend of seclusion and proximity that defines the north shore of Lake Travis.