The German Settlement of the Texas Hill Country

The German Settlement of the Texas Hill Country

Great Texas Books offers low-cost downloads of Texas histories, memoirs, biographies, journals, and reports in e-book formats. Our editions are superior to similar texts available elsewhere because we meticulously convert, proof, edit, and design each book. Our books are not mere facsimiles of the original text; they are entirely new editions designed for the 21st century reader of e-books.

The Texas Hill Country is the sweet spot of Texas. Rolling hills covered with oak and cedar enclose flat, green bottoms coursed by prolific spring-fed creeks and rivers. Deer, wild turkey and fox inhabit the forests and venture into the fields at dusk. Four distinct but moderate seasons reinforce the cycles of life.

Geographically, the Hill Country is the rippling eastern portion of the Edwards Plateau. It is bordered to the west by less convoluted stretches of the plateau, to the south by the Balcones Escarpment, and to the north by rolling plains and prairies that extend to the base of the Llano Estacado. The Colorado River, curving from the west to the south and draining to the Gulf, is a reasonable but inexact definition of the eastern boundary.

The Hill Country is not especially high: its maximum elevation is around fifteen hundred feet above the sea and much of it lies below one thousand feet. Like the remainder of the Edwards Plateau, the Hill Country has a thin layer of soil over Comanchean limestone. This same limestone underpins the High Plains of Texas; despite the ripples in the Hill Country, the plateau is considered the southernmost unit of the Great Plains.

Cotton and other crops have been raised in the Hill Country, but the scant local soil lends itself more to grazing. Cattle do well where soils are deepest and forage is greatest. Sheep are the livestock of choice as soils and flora thin; goats are the best alternative as hillsides become rockier and grasses turn into browse.

It may be limestone that most characterizes the Hill Country. Subsurface aquifers flow through limestone, making the waters exceptionally hard. Houses are built of limestone blocks. Long limestone fences divide fields. Theyâ€™ve been quarrying limestone out of the face of the Balcones Escarpment for more than a century and, while the resulting scars are far from attractive, theyâ€™ve barely made a dent in the supply of stone. Limestone makes the spring-fed creeks and rivers of the Hill Country run clear and cool. The most beautiful streamsâ€”the Guadalupe River and Cibolo Creek, for exampleâ€”are lined with towering cypress trees that thrust immense roots into the cool current.

During the decades of Spanish Texas, Mexican Texas and the Republic of Texas, the Hill Country was unsettled; it was too remote, and too thoroughly in control of Lipan Apaches, and later Peneteka Comanches. The Spanish attempted to establish the Presidio de San Luis de las Amarillas and the Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba (near todayâ€™s Menard) in 1757, but the mission was abandoned within two years and the presidio within fifteen. Between that time and the mid-nineteenth century, only bold explorers and military expeditions penetrated north of the Balcones Escarpment.

The first significant influx of settlers into the Hill Country began in 1845, when German immigrants founded the town of New Braunfels, then moved north to establish Fredericksburg. These immigrants arrived under the auspices of a quasi-charitable organization known as the Adelsverein. Even today it is not uncommon to come across someone in the Hill Country whose ancestors arrived in Texas aboard ships chartered in Germany by the Adelsverein. The impact of organized German colonization has lingered in the Hill Country for more than 150 years.

Country	USA
Author	Jefferson Morgenthaler
Binding	Kindle Edition
EISBN	9781932801040
Format	Kindle eBook
IsAdultProduct
Label	Mockingbird Books
Manufacturer	Mockingbird Books
NumberOfPages	199
PublicationDate	2011-02-17
Publisher	Mockingbird Books
ReleaseDate	2011-02-17
Studio	Mockingbird Books

The German Settlement of the Texas Hill Country

You might also like...