Hometown Madison - July & August 2017

Preserving Heritage
Susan Marquez
When Henry Klass, John Kehle, Valentine
Fitsch, Peter Schmidt and Joseph Weilandt
purchased farmland from the Highland Colony
Company in Calhoun, Mississippi, in 1905,
they probably never dreamed it would be a
burgeoning community a century or so later.
Yet, that’s exactly what Gluckstadt has become.
The German descendants from Klaasville,
Indiana purchased the land for $22,000 and
with great optimism, they changed the name of
the community to Gluckstadt, which in
German means “Lucky City.” Nine families
moved their belongings to the area, working
over the winter to build homes and clear land in
preparation for the spring planting.
“My grandfather, Anthony Weisenberger,
was one of the other German-American families
to join the growing community,” said life-long
Gluckstadt resident Bill Weisenburger. He was
joined by Henry Aulenbrook, John A. Minninger,
Peter Miller, Joseph Haas, Peter Endris, and
Peter Minninger. Kerry Minninger, another
lifelong resident, is a descendant from one of
those original families as well. “There have been
Minningers in Gluckstadt for over 100 years,”
said Kerry Minninger.
Minninger was born in South Louisiana
and lived in Jackson for a while, but when he
was young he lived with his grandparents on
their dairy farm in Gluckstadt. “My grandparents
migrated down from Indiana with other
German immigrants to make a new life in this
area. The land speculators with the Highland
Colony Land Corporation found land in
Gluckstadt that belonged to the three widowed
daughters of a judge. The speculator took an
option on the land. Three years after settling in
the area, the immigrants learned that the land
deal wasn’t a proper transaction and the land
wasn’t legally theirs, so they ended up having to
buy the land twice. They went to a Catholic
priest who got in contact with a law firm in
Jackson and they worked out a payment
schedule to pay for the land again.”
Minninger explained that the first building
in Gluckstadt was a church that had a kitchen
attached to a parish hall. “It was actually a
schoolhouse built in 1910,” Minninger said.
“My daddy went to school there.”
Weisenberger said he’s enjoyed watching
the growth of the area. “This used to be nothing
but cattle pastures and cornfields,” he recalled.
“There were probably more dairy farms here
than anywhere else in the South. German
heritage of this community is so strong. What
many people don’t realize is that many of our
dads and uncles fought against the Germans
during WWII. It is entirely possible that they
were fighting their own relatives. During the
war, the name of the community reverted back
to Calhoun Station for a time.”
Those who have lived in the community for
generations understand and appreciate the
heritage of Gluckstadt. “There are residents
who moved here as the area developed and they
had no idea of the rich German heritage,” said
14 • July/August 2017