Hackberry

By 1884 Hackberry was a cotton town with seven steam gristmill-cotton gins, about three hundred people, two churches, a school, a saloon, a blacksmith shop and a tin shop. The Handbook says L. E. Neuhaus settled here in 1847 and opened a steam sawmill-gristmill in 1853. His store of 1865 was rebuilt in 1880 as a large two-story building. Germans arrived in the 1860s into a mostly Anglo community. The Methodist church that served as a school burned in 1896, and new schools followed in 1896, 1904 and 1928. The post office closed in 1906.

What the plaque says

Hackberry The Hackberry community was established by German immigrant Ludwig Eduard Neuhaus, who came to Texas in 1846, settling in northern Lavaca County. He encouraged and sponsored other German immigrants to settle in Hackberry; among those that joined him were his brothers, Franz and Hermann. Ludwig's vision was to bring Germans to the area who could contribute to and augment its German population. Located along the Gonzales-San Felipe Road, a vital route running across northern Lavaca County, the settlement experienced steady growth. By the 1850s, the community was thriving. It had a saw mill, grist mill, and a general store, which Ludwig Neuhaus and his wife, Auguste, ran out of their home. A Methodist church, which was also used as a school, was established in 1861. Also in that year, the town received a post office and was officially named Hackberry for the trees located on Neuhaus' property. Hackberry provided daily stages to Hallettsville and Schulenburg, and also featured a dance hall, slaughter house and dipping vat. Area settlers included large plantation owner W.G. Foley and James W. Robinson, who was provisional governor of Texas in 1836. In the late 1800s, Hackberry began to decline when a railroad bypassed the town. The population dropped quickly. In 1935, the Neuhaus general store closed. Only a few structures remained as vestiges of the community. Today, Hackberry remains a link to the area's past as an agricultural community development. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lavaca County Courthouse — 9.7 mi
  A limestone Romanesque courthouse of 1897-99 on the square of a town founded by a widow trader, in a county seat that once printed the Socialist Party's state paper.
• Nativity of Mary, Blessed Virgin Catholic Church (High Hill) — 10 mi
  A red brick Gothic Revival church of 1906 in a German farm settlement, where two San Antonio painters spent 1912 faking marble columns and stone vaults on wood.
• Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church (Dubina) — 11 mi
  The church of Texas's first Czech settlement, under a sky-blue painted ceiling that was whitewashed in the 1950s and brought back from faint traces by its own parishioners.
• St. Mary's Church of the Assumption (Praha) — 13 mi
  The mother parish of the Czech settlements around Flatonia, a stone-fronted church of 1895 whose ceiling Gottfried Flury turned into a turquoise garden, with an August 15 feast since 1855.

More markers nearby

• Oakland Normal School — 3.5 mi
• Oakland — 3.5 mi
• Vsetin Cemetery — 5.8 mi
• Site of Former Town of Lyons — 6.0 mi