GERMANS IN THE TEXAS WILDERNESS
A group of German noblemen known as the Adelsverein, promoted the huge wave of German immigrants that began landing on Matagorda Bay in 1844. Some of the early arrivals remained on that barren strip of shell beach and established a port that became Indianola. Most of the emigrants moved inland and created settlements such as […]
LINDHEIMER: FATHER OF TEXAS BOTANY
If you have heard of the Texas prickly pear cactus, the Texas yellow star daisy, milkweed and loco weed, or the Texas rat snake, you may be surprised to know all five derive their scientific name from Ferdinand Jacob Lindheimer—a botanist who scoured the wilds of Texas in the 1830s and 40s to discover several […]
TRUE TO THE UNION
One of the few Union monuments south of the Mason-Dixon Line stands in Comfort, Texas, honoring a group of Union sympathizers killed by Confederate troops. Most of the Unionists, young German immigrants recently arrived in the United States to escape oppression in their native country, saw themselves as freethinkers, intellectuals who did not believe in […]