The Mesquite Belt Railroad Town: Cat Spring, Texas
The Mesquite Belt Railroad Town: Cat Spring, Texas
MKT 371 leads 614, 629 and another unit West out of Sealy, past Schier Grain, headed to
Cat Spring May 1988
Photo courtesy of www.railpixs.com
Cat Spring located at the intersection of
Farm to Market (FM) roads 2187 and 949, on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad and the west
bank of Bernard Creek in western Austin County, was first settled in 1834 by a group of German
immigrants from the duchies of Oldenburg and Westphalia led by Ludwig Anton Siegmund von Roeder
and Robert Kleberg.
Many of these immigrants had been attracted to Texas by the letters of an earlier Oldenburg
migrant, Friedrich Ernst, who had taken up land nearby in the valley of Mill Creek in 1831.
The community received its name when a son of Leopold von Roeder killed a puma at one of the
springs of the San Bernard River near the family farm. A German Protestant congregation was
organized at Cat Spring by Rev. Louis C. Ervendberg between 1840 and 1844. The earliest
agricultural society in Texas was formed in the town immediately after the Civil War. A
post office was established by 1878. By the early 1890s the Missouri, Kansas and Texas
Railroad linked Cat Spring with New Ulm to the west and Sealy to the east.
In 1836 Cat Spring had a population estimated at 350, and fifteen businesses.
However, decline set in after World War II, and by 1950 it had an estimated 200 people and nine
businesses. In 1990 Cat Spring had a population of seventy-six and two accredited
businesses.
Information
from The Handbook of Texas Online; a joint project of The General Libraries at
the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical Association.
The Handbook of Texas Online
