Lenz

Lenz, on Farm Road 626 eight miles west of Kenedy in Karnes County, was settled in the early 1890s by German farmers from Fayette County, who bought their farmland from W. A. Thulemeyer. The black land produced cotton remarkably well, and cotton replaced cattle as the leading industry of the county. Because the farming community was near the head of Weedy Creek, it was first called Weedy and later New Weedy before it became Lenz. Eventually a store, a school, a cotton gin, and a Sons of Hermann lodge were built. A Lenz post office operated from 1908 to 1912. In 1948 maps indicate a number of residences, a business, and a school. The population in 1949–50 was forty; this remained constant through 1959, when the population dropped to twenty, where it remained in 1990. The great drought of the 1950s caused an exodus from the farms. In 1990 only the Hermann lodge, called Lenz Hall, and a few scattered farm residents remain. The population was listed at twenty in 2000.