Town of Knippa

Knippa's other congregations followed the Lutherans. St. Joseph's, a Catholic mission, was built in 1913 through the efforts of Mr. and Mrs. W. F. Knippa, and a Baptist church went up in 1915 under the Reverend Rubottom. By 1944 Methodist, Baptist and Church of Christ congregations held regular services, and the Church of Christ built anew in 1948. Raymond Wolf, the Lutheran pastor from 1957 to 1967, was named Texas Rural Minister of the Year in 1964. The town counted about 400 people in 1929, 150 in 1933 and 739 in 2000.

What the plaque says

Town of Knippa Served by the Texas & New Orleans Railroad since 1882, this area was settled in 1887 by George Knippa. A freighter who worked between East Texas and Mexico, Knippa also encouraged many friends to move to the fertile land of this county. In 1899 gold-mining was tried here by an aged, white-bearded stranger known as Wilson. In 1900 the community acquired a post office and in 1909 a town was laid out. Previously called Chatfield, it was renamed Knippa. The Trap Rock Mine, a stone and gravel business which started in 1913, is still in operation. 1969

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Uvalde Grand Opera House — 11 mi
  An 1891 Victorian opera house on the Uvalde square with a turret and a dragon weathervane, once owned by John Nance Garner and still staging volunteer theater upstairs.
• Briscoe-Garner Museum — 11 mi
  The Uvalde house of John Nance Garner, the vice president who made the office a power in Congress, now a free museum to him and to Governor Dolph Briscoe.
• Fort Inge Historical Site — 11 mi
  A county park on the Leona River below a 140-foot volcanic plug, where an army post guarded the new road to El Paso from 1849 to 1869 and Texas Rangers camped after.
• Garner State Park — 22 mi
  The Frio River park that Uvalde County built with the Civilian Conservation Corps and named for its own vice president, where people have danced on the stone pavilion every summer since the 1940s.

More markers nearby

• Emmanuel Lutheran Church — 0.2 mi
• Knippa Trap Rock Plant — 0.8 mi
• Garner Army Air Field — 8.2 mi
• Site of Camp Sabinal — 9.5 mi