Germania Mutual Aid Association

Rural Texans of the 1890s could hardly buy affordable property insurance, and Germania began as an answer. The Handbook of Texas says a Bartlett storekeeper, L. A. Niebuhr, saw his customers' hardship and proposed a mutual plan that Waco lawyer E. W. Hander finally drafted. Thirty-four charter members organized it in a Perry schoolhouse in 1896. By 1897 it had 116 members and more than $50,000 in force. Officers went across Texas by horse and buggy to enroll farmers. The Handbook puts the home office in Brenham in 1925, the plaque in 1898.

What the plaque says

Germania Mutual Aid Association In 1894 Bartlett, Texas, merchant L. A. Niebuhr presented Waco attorney E. W. Hander with a plan to establish a farm mutual aid association to provide farmers insurance against losses due to fire, lightning, and storms. Hander initially dismissed Niebuhr's plan but in 1896 he agreed to draw up a constitution for the association. The organization of the Germania Mutual Aid Association took place in a schoolhouse in Perry, Texas, on August 31, 1896, with 34 members. Businessman Otto Rau was chosen president; Hander, vice president; and Niebuhr, secretary. By early 1897 the association consisted of 116 members and seven local chapters. Niebuhr moved to Brenham and established the association's office in a building on his property in 1898. The association, which had grown to 160 local chapters insuring 9,349 members by 1926, erected a new office building in 1927. Insurance coverage for hail hazards was added in 1934, gas explosions in 1938, theft in 1867, and vandalism in 1970. Stock companies were organized in 1979 and 1983 to write liability and life insurance. The association's name was changed to Germania Farm Mutual Aid Association in 1960 and Germania Farm Mutual Insurance Association in 1982. By the end of 1994 the association's membership stood at 144,918. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 12 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 19 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 19 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.

More markers nearby

• 100th Anniversary Brenham "Banner-Press" — steps away
• William H. Watson — 0.7 mi
• Brenham — 1.1 mi
• Evangelical Lutheran Colleges of Texas — 1.3 mi