ELM GROVE, TEXAS (Caldwell County). Elm Grove is a mile southeast of the intersection of Farm roads 86 and 158 and four miles northeast of McMahan in northeastern Caldwell County. A post office operated there from 1874 until 1890, and in 1875 the settlement became the focus of a county school district. By the mid-1880s the community had steam saw and grist mills, three cotton gins, a church, and 150 residents. At that time area farmers shipped cotton and produce. By the 1920s most of the townsite was in ruins. The community's district school closed in the 1940s, and local students were sent to the McMahan, Dale, and Lockhart schools. Elm Grove's school building was made into a community center in 1953; it was used for community singing through the mid-1960s and was renovated in the 1980s. Improved roads and utilities in the area attracted new residents, many of whom commuted to work in nearby Lockhart or Luling.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mark Withers Trail Drive Museum, Historical Caldwell County (Dallas: Taylor, 1984). Carroll L. Mullins, History of the Schools of Caldwell County to 1900 (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1929).

Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl