Wofford

Lindenau is on Farm Road 953 five miles northwest of Cuero in north central DeWitt County. A group of German farm families settled the community in 1891 near the junction of Sandies Creek and the Guadalupe River. The farmers donated money to start a school, located on the John T. Wofford ranch and originally called Wofford. During a school benefit given in 1893, however, an entertainer sang the popular German song "Lindenau," and at her suggestion the name was given to the school. A store and post office were established for the community in 1895, and residents enjoyed semiweekly mail delivery by mule-drawn wagon from Cuero, which had the nearest bank and railhead. A Lutheran congregation was organized at Lindenau in 1902. In 1906 the community was moved a mile to become a depot on the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio line, when the railroad was extended from Cuero toward Smiley. The Lindenau school remained at the original site. The new location soon had a store and a cotton gin, and it maintained a post office until 1948, though from early April to mid-May 1920 the post office was called Lindeman. The Lutherans erected a church in 1912, and in 1930 the old school was replaced by a three-room building that served the community until 1954. The nearby Guilford school was merged with that of Lindenau in 1942. Lindenau reported a population of sixty from the mid-1920s until the late 1960s, when it decreased to fifty, the same population was listed through 2000.