Warda

Warda is on U.S. Highway 77 on Rabb's Creek and its tributaries ten miles north of La Grange in northern Fayette County. This area is on the eastern boundary of the Lost Pines and was a source of lumber in the early days. It was sparsely settled until A. E. Falke, a Wendish immigrant, began buying land in 1867 and opened a general store in 1874. Other Wends moved to the area, and in 1882 Holy Cross Lutheran Church, with forty families and its school of eighty-two students, was moved from Lee County to Warda. The community was named for Wartha, Saxony, the former home of Falke. Warda became a voting place for Precinct 16 in 1875 and opened a post office in 1877. By 1884 the settlement had several sawmills and gristmills, cotton gins, two general stores, a blacksmith, a wagonmaker, a coffin maker, a barber, a physician, and a drugstore. The Lutheran school, which operated until 1969, was supplemented by a public school from 1898 until 1948. The residents of Warda are principally descendents of the original settlers, and they carry on their ancestors' farming tradition. Many also hold outside jobs. Surviving old businesses are the Falke General Store and post office, which continued in the Falke family until 1946, and the Jurk sawmill, founded in 1906. The central focus of the town continues to be the church. In the early 1990s Warda, which lies within the Giddings field of the Austin Chalk Trend, became a highly active area of horizontal drilling. An oilfield service and headquarters for a major gathering and processing company were located in Warda. Warda had a population of 161 in 1985 and sixty-seven in 1990. The population reached ninety-eight in 2000.