The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Leatherface's Texas

The film opens before dawn on 18 August 1973, as a grave robber hauls corpses from a cemetery near the fictional town of Newt and arranges them on a monument. The cemetery is real: Bagdad Cemetery, opened in 1857 on the road north of Leander. Sally and Franklin stop here later to check their grandfather's grave, and a local warns them off. The desecrated tombstone was only a prop, but the taller marker behind it still stands in the centre of the grounds. It remains an active cemetery, so visit quietly.

Visitor guidance: Bagdad Cemetery is an active cemetery; visit respectfully and quietly.

The van is running low, so the group pulls into this roadside station for fuel. The proprietor says he has none, and the pumps are dry. It is the film's pivot: Sally later jumps from a second-floor window, runs here for help, and the same man beats her, loads her into his pickup and drives her back. The building opened in 1960 as a local gas station south of Bastrop. It is now a barbecue restaurant with a motel, campsites and a gift shop, and the old "We Slaughter Barbecue" sign still hangs over the pumps.

Visitor guidance: The Gas Station is at 1073 State Highway 304 south of Bastrop, with barbecue, a gift shop and cabins.

This is where the film's long night happens. The farmhouse stood on Quick Hill Road, an early-1900s house built around 1908–1910, and Hooper shot there in July and August 1973. In the film Kirk finds it surrounded by run-down cars and gas-powered generators; Sally later finds an old man and a rotting corpse inside. The house was cut into seven pieces and moved to Kingsland in 1998, and the site is now La Frontera, a shopping development. The house itself survives; the farm does not.

Location precision: The farmhouse stood on Quick Hill Road, now inside the La Frontera development; the pin marks La Frontera Village.

Visitor guidance: The site is now La Frontera Village, an ordinary shopping development; nothing of the farmhouse remains here.

At dawn Sally breaks free, runs onto the road in front of the house and is chased by the brothers. A truck runs down the hitchhiker, and she flags a passing pickup and climbs into the back. As it pulls away she laughs while Leatherface swings his chainsaw in the road. The road was Old Country Road 172 in Round Rock; the city notes that it has been swallowed by modern development.

Location precision: Old Country Road 172 has vanished under later development; the pin marks Hester's Crossing beside the old Quick Hill site.

The farmhouse that stood on Quick Hill now sits in Kingsland, on the grounds of The Antlers Hotel, where it is the restaurant Hooper's. It was moved from Williamson County in 1998, reassembled and restored to its original condition. This is the house where the brothers bring Grandpa down the stairs and cut Sally's finger so he can suck her blood. You can dine inside the original structure, and the Victorian exterior is unmistakable. Check opening hours before the drive; it is the furthest stop from Austin.

Visitor guidance: Hooper's is on the Antlers Hotel grounds in Kingsland; check opening hours before the drive.