Biohazard Cleanup Near West Knippa Knippa, TX

Knippa (pronounced kuh-NIP-uh) is an unincorporated census-designated place in southeastern Uvalde County, Texas, on U.S. Highway 90 and the Frio River between Sabinal and Uvalde.

Knippa was originally known as Chatfield, a siding on the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway, and was settled in 1887 by founder George Knippa, a freighter who moved his family there from Fayette County.

A drought in the early 1890s drove many of Knippa's first farming families away, but around 1900 a new wave of settlers, mostly Germans, arrived, and a post office opened in 1898.

Uvalde County's School District No. 12 was established at Knippa on February 16, 1898, and a Lutheran church was built in 1910 on land donated by George Knippa, with services conducted in German.

When the Uvalde Council of Defense banned the use of German at the start of World War I, Knippa's residents took the case to court, and the prohibition was eventually rescinded by the United States Supreme Court.

A brief gold-mining attempt was made west of Knippa in 1899, but the lasting industry was a traprock mine, opened in the early 1900s, that supplied stone and gravel used in railroad roadbeds.

Knippa first appeared as a census-designated place in the 2000 census, when it recorded 739 residents.

As of the 2020 census, Knippa had a population of 606, down from 689 in 2010.

Knippa covers about 5.2 square miles of southeastern Uvalde County and is part of the Uvalde micropolitan statistical area.