The town of Elberta is ready to celebrate its German heritage, which dates back to the early 1900s.

The 39th annual German Festival is scheduled for Saturday at St. Benedict School in Elberta, and the all-day event will begin at 8:30 a.m. with the Raven Run 5K race followed by the Disciple Dash one-mile fun run. The first 100 race entrants will receive a free T-shirt.

The event will also include free German food, music, games, dancing, bingo, vendor booths, drinks and more food. It will last until 5:30 p.m, and all proceeds from the event will benefit St. Benedict School.

“Around 90 percent of the original families are all German,” Becky Underwood, festival representative, said, noting a lot of the families names as Kiefer, Kaiser and Krouse.

Elberta was founded in the early 20th century by farmers immigrating from Germany, Underwood said.

Kenny Kaiser Sr. is a descendant of one of the original families to migrate to Elberta in the early 20th century.

“My grandparents came to America in 1906 from Austria-Hungary. It was still Austria-Hungary back then,” he said. “They were German-speaking people. They went to Chicago and in 1914 they came to Elberta and started farming and made a German village of sorts.”

Kaiser said the move to the small town started when a colonization company advertised in Chicago for open land somewhere in southern Alabama.

“My grandpa got a job in Chicago,” he said. “The Baldwin County Colonization Company had ads for land down here. They came down here and checked it out and started farming.”

Kaiser said some members of the original families have moved out of the area, but most are still represented in Elberta.

“A lot of the original families are still here,” he said.

Underwood said the original families carry on with farming.

“They still farm today,” Underwood said. “A lot of the families, like the Kaiser’s and Krouses’, they still have farms and farm every day. I know (St. Benedict School) started in 1921 and was a nunnery, and everyone who went were farmers. We’re talking about very poor families.”

The town also holds the German Sausage Festival twice a year to support the town’s Volunteer Fire Department.

For more information about the event, call 251-986-8143.