Bastrop County recently observed Juneteenth, which commemorates the freeing of slaves by President Abraham Lincoln with the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. The news did not arrive in Texas until June 19, 1865. The new exhibit, “Freedom Colonies of Bastrop County,” which recently opened at the Bastrop County Historical Museum & Visitors Center, explores what happened to the hundreds of slaves freed in Bastrop County on June 19, 1865. The project had been considered by museum archivist Carol Kysar, but things took another direction when Doris Williams and her cousin visited the museum and were researching some information on their descendants.