Lanier

Lanier is on State Highway 59 five miles south of Linden in Cass County. The community was three miles south of its present site when it was originally settled in the early 1870s. It was named after Lanier, Georgia, the birthplace of an early settler, and had a store and a population of thirty in 1884. By 1896 the community had a population of fifty and two churches. Shortly thereafter its population began to decline, and its post office was closed. In 1912 the Jefferson and Northwestern Railroad was completed to Linden, bypassing Lanier, the residents of which moved to the present location to be near the railroad. A post office was again established in 1913. The town's population estimates jumped from twenty-five in 1925 to 150 in 1929. The Lanier post office was closed in 1929, and by 1933 the community's population was again estimated as twenty-five. In 1983 the community had two churches, a cemetery, a business, and a population estimated at forty, where it remained in 1990. By 2000 the population was listed as forty-three.