Oldenburg

Who founded Oldenburg is not settled: the Handbook names either Gus Steenken or Johann Schmitt, and dates the founding to 1886. A post office followed in 1887. Residents went to Rutersville or Warrenton to vote. Cotton carried the town, and by 1900 it had two stores, a saloon, a physician's office, a blacksmith, a gin and a dance hall; in 1950 it still had five businesses and 150 people. When cotton declined in the 1960s the gin and other businesses closed. The blacksmith shop was sold at auction in 1983 and moved to a historic theme park.

What the plaque says

Oldenburg The land in this area was included in a Mexican land grant awarded to Nathaniel Townsend in 1838. Portions of the grant were sold to a succession of different people over the years, and in 1885 August Heintze and Gus Steenken, both natives of Oldenburg, Germany, founded a community and named it after their hometown. The majority of the settlers in this area were immigrants from Germany and Bohemia. At its height Oldenburg boasted homes, farms, and a number of businesses and institutions, including stores, saloons, a cotton gin, tin shop, doctors' office, blacksmith shop, post office, church, dance halls (festplatz), and schools. The first school in the community was known as the German and Bohemian Oldenburg School. Founded in 1898, it was succeeded in 1922 by Oldenburg Common School District No.5. A separate school for black students opened about 1930. By 1944, both schools were consolidated with the Fayetteville School District. Descendants of early German and Bohemian settlers continue to reside in this vicinity. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 16 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 21 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 34 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.

More markers nearby

• Asa Hill of Rutersville — 2.7 mi
• Rutersville — 2.7 mi
• Rutersville College — 2.9 mi
• Site of First Methodist Annual Conference in Texas — 2.9 mi