Bleiblerville

Bleiblerville, on Farm Road 2502 four miles northeast of Industry in northwestern Austin County, was named for Robert Bleibler, who established a general store at the site in the late 1880s. By the late nineteenth century, successive waves of German immigration into northwestern Austin County had produced a large German population in the vicinity. A post office was established in Bleiblerville in 1891. By 1900 Theodore Wehring operated a cotton gin in the community. An active Red Cross chapter, organized locally during World War I, included ten black residents on its sixty-eight-member roster. The nearby Welcome School is a mile northwest of town on Farm Road 2502. In 1904 the town reported a population of 101. The population rose to an estimated 150 by 1925. In 1931 four businesses were reported in the community. The population climbed to an estimated 225 by 1966 as oil exploration increased in the area. By 1972, however, it had fallen to an estimated seventy-one, its level in 2000.