It rises in the limestone hills of the eastern Edwards Plateau qv and crosses an area of the Llano basin characterized by flat to rolling to steep terrain, surfaced by deep to shallow sandy and clayey loams and some shallow, stony soils.
Vegetation consists primarily of scrub brush, grasses, and open stands of live oak and mesquite.
Early settlers arrived in the area around 1856, and out of their settlements grew the community of Art. The Handbook of Texas Online. The Texas State Historical Association, 1997,1998,1999.