Wied

Wied is on Farm Road 1891 just north of U.S. Highway 90A, midway between Hallettsville and Shiner in west central Lavaca County. The first settlers in the area were John Smeathers, who arrived in 1832, and Francis Smith, who arrived in 1835. Soon after Texas independence Anthony Brown and Moses Mitchell joined them. These Anglo-Americans from the southern United States found that the well-watered and well-drained rolling prairieland between Ponton and Smeathers creeks provided excellent pasture for horses and cattle and, when cultivated, produced good crops of cotton and corn. By 1873 German immigrants had replaced most of the original occupants and divided the ranches into farms. A community with a blacksmith shop, a store, and a cotton gin developed on land owned by the Wied brothers and took their name. A post office operated in the store from 1889 until 1906. Czech immigrants arriving in the 1880s and 1890s soon balanced the German population. In the 1890s Wied had a population of forty. F. F. Kuehn operated a private school in the community until 1895, when F. W. Wunderlich donated land for a public school. By 1919 there were enough Czech Catholics to build St. Ludmilla's Catholic Church. Cotton supported the local economy, which rose and fell with supply and demand. Wied had a population peak at 100 and three businesses in the early 1940s. By 1950 the population had fallen to forty, where it remained through the late 1960s. In 1950 the store and gin remained, but the decline in cotton production soon afterward closed them, and residents traveled to Hallettsville or Shiner for shopping. From 1968 through 2000 the population of Wied was sixty-five. In 1987 a community hall and large commercial nursery marked the site of the community.