OTTO, TEXAS. Otto is near the intersection of Farm roads 1240
and 2603, eight miles northeast of Perry in northern Falls
County. Settlement of the area began in the 1850s and centered
around two communities known as Needmore and Lonestar. These
merged to form Otto when the International-Great Northern
Railroad built the section of track from Marlin to Waco in 1901.
A post office was established, and the new community was named
either for Charles Otto Leuschner, a local landowner, or for
Henry Otto Stansbury, a schoolteacher. In 1905 Otto had a two-
teacher school for ninety-nine white students and a one-teacher
school for fifty-seven black students. By 1914 the community had
three churches, a bank, a variety of other businesses, and 250
residents. Its population estimates were as high as 1,000 in the
mid-1920s, but the combined effects of the Great Depression and
World War II drew a significant number of residents to the
cities. By 1941 the population of Otto was listed at 500; two
years later it had fallen to