Runge

Runge is at the junction of State Highway 72 and four farm roads, east of the San Antonio River, three miles west of the DeWitt county line, and nine miles east of Kenedy in southeastern Karnes County. The settlement developed in 1887 in the vicinity of earlier Sulphur Spring, Mineral Spring, and Hortonville and was named after Henry Runge, a pioneer merchant and banker whose company helped develop the town. When Gustav Tips arrived to build a store for H. Runge and Company, the town had a house and a street. The post office at Runge opened in 1887. By 1890 Runge had grown to be the largest town in Karnes County. Among its businesses were a mercantile store, a lumberyard, a livery, a depot, a drugstore, a sheet-metal works, a barbershop, a saloon, a mill, and a gin. By 1895 the community had a population of 750, thirty business, three churches, and a two-story frame school that employed five teachers. The Runge Independent School District built a school for $5,000 in 1892. By 1902 it had 312 students. In 1901 eleven grades were being taught; that year the district rented a home for four dollars a month to be used as a school for Mexican-American children. In 1914 the Runge school for Whites taught grades one through eleven and had twelve teachers; the Mexican-American school had three teachers, and the African-American school had two teachers. In 1937 the schools had 651 students and seventeen teachers. A new brick school for White students was constructed in 1917. This building burned in 1930 and was replaced with a new school, completed in November 1930 at a cost of $120,000. A new school was built for Mexican-American children for $2,800 in 1931. All schools were integrated in the mid-1950s, following the United States Supreme Court decision holding segregation to be unconstitutional.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.