Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Ellinger Historic District Ellinger, TX

Ellinger is a small community in Fayette County at the junction of State Highway 71 and Farm Road 2503, about eleven miles southeast of La Grange.

The town was laid out on the W. O. Burnham league as a railroad stop on the La Grange Tap spur of the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway, and John H. Meyer and Henry Fordtran donated 200 acres for its townsite.

Ellinger takes its name from Joseph Ehlinger, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto who held a land grant in the area — the spelling of his surname gradually drifted from Ehlinger to Ellinger over time.

A post office opened in Ellinger in 1877, and by 1878 the cotton-trading town already had a population of about 100.

By 1900 Ellinger was a thriving cotton town with two churches, a school, four lodges, a public hall, fourteen stores, two cotton gins, two blacksmith shops, and four saloons.

Ellinger faded after the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad bypassed it four miles to the north in the 1890s, and trade drifted to nearby Fayetteville.

By 1950 Ellinger still had eleven businesses and 223 residents, but its economy later shifted from cotton to cattle ranching, grain, and pecans.

The Lower Colorado River Authority built the Fayette County Power Project near Ellinger in the 1970s, bringing a new industrial presence to the area.

Voters approved Ellinger's incorporation in November 2020, making it one of the newest cities in Texas, and the 2020 Census counted 203 residents there.

Census survey data puts Ellinger's housing stock at roughly 160 homes — a tiny, close-knit community where most residents know each other.