SPARENBERG, TEXAS. Sparenberg is at the junction of Farm roads 828 and 26, fourteen miles southeast of Lamesa in southeastern Dawson County. It was named for George Sparenberg, the postmaster at Big Spring, who assisted W. H. Gartin in getting a post office in a store on Gartin's farm in 1903. Gartin served as first postmaster. The post office was discontinued in 1954. In 1920 the population of Sparenberg was 200. In 1930 the town had seventy-five residents and nine businesses. In 1948 the population was eighty-five, and Sparenberg had a school, a post office, three churches, and four businesses. In 1980 the population was twenty. Most farming residents had moved to Lamesa or Big Spring, and the high school was used as a storage shed. Through 2000 the population was still reported at twenty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mathew Clay Lindsey, The Trail of Years in Dawson County (Fort Worth: Wallace, 1958?).

William R. Hunt