village, by General von Bueren's people. The village's character had not changed up until the Thirty Years' War. Klein-Gerau had 150 inhabitants when in 1622 Field Marshal Peter Ernst II von Mansfeld marauded for a while over the Gerauer Land. Then came the Swedes under Gustav II Adolf and with them the Plague. It took more than 50 years for the village to recover from the war's ravages. As of 1700, the population growth led to clearing north of the Mühlbach that was only brought to an end for good on the 20th century. In 1729 the Town Hall was built and in 1753 a new schoolhouse, which is nowadays the Evangelical church. The population was now rising steadily and briskly. In 1779, Klein-Gerau had 323 inhabitants. By 1825, that had risen to 459, and by 1900 to 723, reaching "exactly 1,075" by the time the Second World War broke out in 1939. The building of the railway between Darmstadt and Mainz about 1858 improved the strained situation in the village considerably, affording access to jobs in surrounding towns, and raising many groups' incomes by improving distribution of harvested crops to the markets in neighbouring towns. Moderately prosperous – for a full century from 1850 to 1950 – were the orchards established by the teacher Berz who lived in the village. Even asparagus farming in the local area began in Klein-Gerau. All this meant that the village and its people were spared the worst troubles at the time of the Industrial Revolution. On the night of 17 and 18 April 1932, a fire broke out at the Town Hall, destroying the whole attic, parts of the upper floor and the clock works in the bell tower, together with the bell. Nevertheless, the Town Hall was built anew that same year and placed under protection as a monument. In the second half of the 20th century, the heretofore secondary industry of agriculture was coming ever more towards the fore, with this restructuring bringing Klein-Gerau to prominence as a rural residential community. In 1977, previously independent community of Klein-Gerau was amalgamated as one of three constituent communities of Büttelborn. In the summer of 1996, Klein-Gerau celebrated its 750th anniversary of first documentary mention with, among other things, a great street festival around the renovated historic Town Hall. For years, Klein-Gerau has been known countrywide as the "Bauchnabel Südhessens" – "South Hesse's Navel".