Zimmerscheidt

Zimmerscheidt is a rural community off Farm Road 109 and eight miles north of Columbus in northern Colorado County. German pioneer Frederick A. Zimmerscheidt arrived in the area in the early 1830s and obtained a headright. The Leyendeckers also soon came to the settlement. Zimmerscheidt died in 1856, and his grave records the earliest known death in the Zimmerscheidt-Leyendecker Cemetery. By the 1890s the hamlet of Zimmerscheidt had a school that served German families in the vicinity. The school remained open until it was consolidated into the Columbus Independent School District in 1948. An African-American school also functioned from 1913 to 1924. Frederick Zimmerscheidt's log home was still standing in the 1960s. The community appeared on maps in the late twentieth century, and in 2000 reported a population of fifty. At that time a nearby natural gas field was designated as the Zimmerscheidt Field by the Railroad Commission of Texas. The reported population figure remained the same in 2010.