Evangelical Lutheran Church of Dessau

Dessau, named for a German town, lies two miles southwest of Pflugerville. It had a post office from 1886 to 1890 and again from 1897 to 1901, when service ended and mail was rerouted to Austin. In 1907 its one-teacher school had forty students, and the school was consolidated with the Pflugerville district in 1920. The population was estimated at thirty in the late 1890s, fell to ten by the early 1930s and rose to fifty by the late 1940s, where it stayed through the mid-1960s. Dessau was still listed as a community in 1990.

What the plaque says

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Dessau The community of Dessau was founded in 1854 by German immigrants, including the Wieland, Nauert, Nehring, Grosskopf, Krueger, Goerlitz, and Hennig families. The pioneers worshiped in private homes until this sanctuary was built about 1876. Labor and materials used in its construction were supplied by members of the community. Worship services were conducted in the German language until the mid-1900s. The church building and adjoining cemetery stand as reminders of the area's pioneer German heritage. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• LBJ Presidential Library — 9.6 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.
• Mount Bonnell — 9.7 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.
• Harry Ransom Center — 10 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 10 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.

More markers nearby

• Pflugerville — 2.9 mi
• St. Mary Missionary Baptist Church — 3.0 mi
• The Gault Homestead — 3.6 mi
• Waters Park — 4.2 mi