
Hwy 380 West of Bridgeport
Runaway Bay was developed as a recreational community on the southern
side of Lake Bridgeport. Though Runaway Bay was not established until
after Lake Bridgeport was formed, settlers had arrived in the area
before the Civil War. Col. William H. Hunt and his family arrived about
1855 and built a home called Cactus Hill, the site of which is now in
the center of the lake. The Butterfield Overland Mail route ran near
what is now the site of Runaway Bay. It incorporated in the early 1980s,
when it also had its first official population figures. The population
was reported as twenty-nine in the early 1980s and as 700 ten years
later.