HACKBERRY, TEXAS (Lavaca County). Hackberry is on Farm Road 532 eleven miles northeast of Hallettsville in northeastern Lavaca County. It was settled in 1847 by L. E. Neuhaus, who farmed the property for several years and in 1853 opened a steam sawmill-gristmill. He added a cotton gin several years later. A Methodist church was built in the community in 1861, and this building was also used as a school until it burned in 1896. Hackberry, named for a grove of hackberry trees near the Neuhaus home, received a post office in 1862. In 1865 Neuhaus built a general store, which was rebuilt in 1880 as a large two-story building. In the 1860s substantial numbers of German immigrants settled in what had been a predominantly Anglo community. By 1884 the town had an estimated population of 300, seven steam gristmill-cotton gins, two churches, a school, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, and a tin shop. Successive new school buildings were put up in 1896, 1904, and 1928. Hackberry had 119 inhabitants in 1900, and the post office closed in 1906. By the 1930s Hackberry's population had fallen to seventy-five, and in 1940 the community had a school, a cemetery, a business, and a number of scattered dwellings. The school had been consolidated with that of Hallettsville by the 1960s, and in 1981 Hackberry had a few scattered homes. It was still shown on state highway maps in 1992.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Paul C. Boethel, The History of Lavaca County (San Antonio: Naylor, 1936; rev. ed., Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1959). T. H. Leslie, The History of Lavaca County Schools (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1935).

Mark Odintz