FIRST MAN TO FLY IN AN AIRPLANE?
Always interested in mechanics and inventing, Jacob Brodbeck tried––apparently without success––to build a self-winding clock while he was teaching school in his native Württemberg, Germany. In 1847 he arrived in Fredericksburg to serve as the second teacher at the Vereins Kirche and then taught at other schools in Gillespie County. He married one of his […]
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, 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 hundred […]
Father of German Immigrants
Many early Texas settlers escaped a past that they preferred forgetting. Johann Friedrich Ernst not only turned his back on his past, he changed his name and became such an outstanding German Texan that he earned the title of “Father of the Immigrants.” Born in 1796 as Christian Friedrich Dirks (or Dierks), the future Texan […]
Father of the Immigrants
Many early Texas settlers escaped a past that they preferred forgetting. Johann Friedrich Ernst not only turned his back on his past, he changed his name and became such an outstanding German Texan that he earned the title of “Father of the Immigrants.” Born in 1796 as Christian Friedrich Dirks (or Dierks), the future Texan […]
War Clouds Gather Over Indianola
Indianola was a southern town with a seaport’s connection to the broader cosmopolitan world of commerce, business cooperation, and a diverse blend of residents newly arrived from all over Europe. The soil—gritty shell beaches cut by a crisscross of shallow bayous and lakes—did not lend itself to cotton growing. The vast slave plantations thrived much […]
A Steady Onslaught of Immigrants
In 1844, Samuel Addison White saw an opportunity to make some money and develop his barren piece of property that jutted into the waters between Matagorda and Lavaca bays, a protected area along the Central Texas coast. Prince Karl of Solms Braunfels, an aristocratic emissary representing a group of German noblemen, had shown up on […]
Indianola: Gateway to the Southwest
Waves lap the sunbaked shell beach of a ghost town that never should have been. Despite its locale at near sea level, people built the thriving seaport of Indianola that rivaled Galveston as a major shipping point on the Texas coast. Its shore became the landing site for thousands of Germans escaping poverty in the […]
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 […]
THE BELL WITH SEVEN LIVES
Travelers headed south across Central Texas may discover an interesting story of survival while passing through Cuero. On the southwest corner of US highways183 and 87, the handsome mission style St. Mark’s Lutheran Church boasts three bells in its arched façade. The small bronze bell, the one on the lower right, began life on the […]