ARNECKEVILLE, TEXAS. Arneckeville is a German community on Farm Road 236 and a branch of Coleto Creek eight miles south of Cuero in south central DeWitt County. Although the community dates from 1859, it had no name until 1872, when the post office opened and was named for Adam Christoph Henry and U. Barbara Arnecke, the first settlers. Their log house stood from 1859 to 1947. Zion Lutheran Church was constructed of logs in 1865 and served as a school until a separate school building was built in 1890 on land Arnecke donated. Arnecke also had the community's first store and kept the post office from 1872 to 1903. Dr. C. A. H. Arnecke, son of the founder, built the first drugstore and opened a hospital. By 1885 Arneckeville had the church, a steam gristmill and cotton gin, and daily stages to Meyersville and Goliad. The population of 130 rose to a reported 250 residents by 1896. By 1925 it had declined to seventy-five. It remained steady until the late 1940s, when about 100 residents and four businesses were reported. The post office was closed in the mid-1950s. In 1961 Arneckeville, Westhoff, and Meyersville were the only consolidated rural school districts left in DeWitt County. The population fell to seventy-five in the late 1960s and to fifty in the mid-1980s. It was still reported as fifty in 1990 and 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nellie Murphree, A History of DeWitt County (Victoria, Texas, 1962).

Craig H. Roell