HEIDENHEIMER, TEXAS. Heidenheimer is on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line five miles southeast of Temple in eastern Bell County. It grew up around a railway station in 1881, when a post office also opened there. The post office and community were named for the director of the railroad, a Galveston merchant named S. Heidenheimer. By 1884 the Heidenheimer community had seventy-five inhabitants, a general store, a blacksmith shop, a church, and a school; at that time the town shipped cotton, corn, and oats. The town's population had grown to 225 by 1896, when its businesses included two gins, a hotel, a saloon, a lumber operation, and a newspaper (the Sun). The Heidenheimer School was the third-largest rural school in the county in 1903; it had 149 pupils and three teachers. A bank was opened in the community by 1914. The town reached a peak population of 250 in 1925. Heidenheimer by 1948 had declined to 125 residents, seven businesses, three churches, and two schools. In 1990 it reported 144 inhabitants and two businesses. The population remained the same in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bertha Atkinson, The History of Bell County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1929).

Mark Odintz