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The Week in Germany: Culture

July 28, 2006

German heritage Texas style: Fredericksburg

Fredericksburg, Texas, as well has pride in German heritage that speaks loudly through its website, which greets visitors with a boisterous “Willkommen!” It holds true to its unofficial motto: blending German heritage and Texan hospitality for over 150 years.

Fredericksburg, the county seat of Gillespie County, was founded in 1846 by a small group of settlers on a patch of land surveyed by Prince Karl of New Braunfels. The town was one of a projected series of German settlements from the Texas coast to the land north of the Llano River, which was the ultimate destination of the German immigrants sent to Texas by the Adelsverein, a group of German nobility. The city was named Fredericksburg after Prince Frederick of Prussia, an influential member of the Adelsverein.

Each settler of the town received a lot and ten acres of farmland nearby. The town was laid out like the German villages along the Rhine, from which many of the colonists had come, with one long, wide Main Street that ran along Town Creek. The earliest houses in Fredericksburg were built in a humble manner, of post oak logs stuck upright in the ground. These were soon replaced by Fachwerkhäuser, built of upright timbers with the spaces between filled with rocks and then plastered or whitewashed.

The bitter experience of the Civil War did nothing bt bolster the traditional German determination not to get involved in state and national affairs, which in turn solidified the German community over time. The Germans tried to maintain their independence by steadfastly refusing to learn or use English, an isolationist move that they gave up by 1900.

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