Waldeck Evangelical Lutheran Church

The plaque names Carl Baer as the first salaried minister; he also served longest. Born in Dresden in 1868, he trained as a typesetter, took a print-shop job at the St. Chrischona mission near Basel in 1888 and studied there from 1889. He reached Texas in 1894 and was ordained at Brenham that October. After a trial sermon on January 1, 1900, the Waldeck Lutherans elected him a week later, and he stayed until 1944, preaching in the schoolhouse on first and fifth Sundays. He also held monthly services near Walhalla and Park and at Paige and Dime Box.

What the plaque says

Waldeck Evangelical Lutheran Church Waldeck Evangelical Lutheran Church Before 1900, the German families of Waldeck, once called Long Prairie, were served by German-speaking Methodist missionaries; by 1885, a congregation had organized. In December 1899, the Rev. August Wenzel led local Lutherans in starting a new congregation, which organized as Waldeck Evangelical Lutheran Zion. Pastor Carl Baer became the church's first salaried minister. The congregation met in the Waldeck schoolhouse until 1926, when it bought the Methodist Episcopal sanctuary from the declining neighbor congregation at this site. By that time, the Lutheran church offered Sunday school classes. Within a few decades, it also celebrated with church picnics, programs and community services, all of which continue today. (2003)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Round Top and Festival Hill — 6.5 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.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 12 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.
• Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites — 12 mi
  A shared tomb on the Colorado River bluff for the men of the Dawson fight and the black bean lottery, beside the ruins of a German stonemason's spring-fed brewery.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 16 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.

More markers nearby

• Waldeck Cemetery — 1.3 mi
• Gotcher Trace — 4.9 mi
• Oldenburg — 6.1 mi
• Schiege House — 6.3 mi