Kerr County History 101: what's the oldest settler-made structure in Kerrville?

Searching for the oldest settler-made structure in Kerrville.
Click on any image to enlarge.

Consider the old buildings in downtown Kerrville. Since Kerr County was created in 1856, what is the oldest man-made structure in downtown Kerrville?

The answer might surprise you.

It rests at the bottom of a bluff littered with debris from other, newer structures, and is hidden within a wild tangle of branches, vines, and weeds. Trash is piled in drifts at the site: food wrappers, clothes, broken glass; it's filthy.

Christian Dietert

The oldest man-made structure in Kerrville, since 1856, in my opinion, is what's left of the Christian Dietert mill, found on the bluff along the river below the 800 block of Water Street.

Most who pass by would not recognize it. It looks like a pile of stones, though parts still look very similar to their appearance at least a century ago.

To see the old mill, you have two options. You can visit One Schreiner Center, and walk out on the remains of the old ice plant and look down. Or, if you have extra energy, you can go to the pavilion at the end of Earl Garrett Street, and take the stairs down. The ruins of the old mill are just past the foot bridge that crosses the Guadalupe River below the dam in Louise Hays Park.

The remaining mill structure is older than the oldest commercial building in town, the Favorite Saloon building, at 709 Water Street. That building was built in 1874, three years before the railroad arrived in Kerrville, meaning every bit of material used in its construction was either sourced locally, or hauled here in a wagon.

The original mill on the site was built by Christian Dietert with help from Balthasar Lich around 1857. Of course that original structure was altered and improved over the years, and destroyed more than once by flood waters, and it's possible there is not an original stone left on the site from the original construction. It's my belief at least some of the old original mill remains, even if it's only the cuts in the limestone where water discharged from the water wheel.

I found a nice story about the Dieterts in an old issue of Hunter's "Frontier Times Magazine" written by T. U. Taylor in 1941.

Christian Dietert was a millwright born in Tesen, Germany, in 1827. In 1854 he voyaged to Texas with his brother William on a 4-masted sailing vessel; the trip took five months, and the pair arrived in New Braunfels in July.

The very next month Christian joined a company of 13 men who journeyed to the confluence of the Guadalupe River and Cypress Creek to survey a tract of land and help lay out the town of Comfort.

In 1855 Christian Dietert built a mill on Cypress Creek, but only two months after completion, the little mill had to be abandoned: Cypress Creek ran dry, and the mill was discarded for lack of water power.

That same year he married Miss Rosalie Hess, who had only recently arrived from Jena, Germany. She was nineteen years old, five foot two, and weighed an even 100 pounds. She was tiny.

In 1856 Christian Dietert's parents, two brothers, and a sister joined him in Comfort. Perhaps not surprisingly, Christian Dietert and his new wife moved to Fredericksburg early the next year. Perhaps there was just "too much family" in the little town of Comfort.

While in Fredericksburg, Dietert helped construct the Van der Stucken mill, and toward the end of the year, Christian Dietert and his bride moved to Kerrville.

It was 1857, and the town of "Kerrsville" was still a rough frontier place. The article suggests there were only five one-roomed huts in the entire village.

The Dieterts bought a tract along the river in Kerville -- a tract which stretched from today's Earl Garrett Street to A Street. (What a nice little stretch of the river!)

There he built a shingle mill, using horse power until he could construct a water wheel, "with which he later sawed lumber from the Cypress trees growing along the banks of the river." The mill stood about where One Schreiner Center is today.

A flood a year or so later washed the first Kerrville mill away. Lacking funds to build anew, the couple moved back to Fredericksburg, where Dietert helped build a grist and saw mill on Live Oak Creek for a Mr. C. H. Guenther.

After only a few months of operation a flood washed away the mill and even the waterwheel.

So back to Kerrville the Dieterts came, building a new mill on the site of the old. No flood destroyed this new Dietert mill, though. It burned down instead.

Offered work building a mill in Comfort, and seeking a school for his children, the Dieterts moved again. During this same time he built a mill for his brother William, who lived in Boerne.

Finally, in 1866, the Dieterts moved back to Kerrville, this time to stay. Although another mill he built washed away in a flood, in 1868 he came up with an "under water iron turbine," and a "old type of flour mill consisting of two large stones, the lower a flat stational stone with a somewhat conical shaped stone above it, which in revolving crushed and ground the grain into flour."

The mill was successful and ground wheat, corn, and also operated a sawmill.

Though Dietert would build more mills, and even freighted for the Confederate government during the Civil War, Kerrville remained his home, even after he sold his mill to Captain Charles Schreiner.

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who has clambered over the ruins of Christian Dietert's mill since he was a boy. It was easier back then. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead May 2, 2024.

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is free, but not cheap to send. To show your support, forward it to someone who’d like it, or buy one of my books.  Thanks so much. (And thanks to all of you who bought books this week!)

Never miss a story from Joe. Join today for FREE.

Kerr History 101: German Immigrants in Early Kerr County

Rosalie Hess Dietert, and a sampler she made.
Click on any image to enlarge.

Almost all of us here descend from immigrants; even with Native American ancestors, if you go back in time far enough, the theory suggests they immigrated to the New World, too.

Years ago, a kind person shared several large boxes of historic items with me – and among the heirlooms was a simple piece of cloth, embroidered with letters, numbers, and two first names. It is an embroidery sampler, made by a young woman in Germany who would come to Texas in the 1850s. Her name was Rosalie Hess, and she was born in Jena, Germany, on January 17, 1833, and immigrated to Texas in 1854. She married Christian Dietert in 1855. 

One of the earliest families to settle in Kerrville was the Dietert family, and it was one of their descendants who shared the items with me, for placement in the museum. 

When Rosalie and Christian Dietert arrived in Kerrville in 1857, there were only five one-room huts in the entire town. The Dieterts built a home on Spring Street, which is near the intersection of today's Washington and Water Streets, opposite the front doors to the sanctuary of Notre Dame Catholic Church, overlooking the river. Dietert was a millwright, and he built a mill on his property along the river. Ruins of that mill still exist along the river below One Schreiner Center.

His first mill here was powered by horses, and was designed to make shingles. He later built a mill powered by the river, which he used to saw lumber. 

Here's how Rosalie Dietert described Kerrville as it was 1857, in a 1931 interview with her great-granddaughter, who was writing a report for her history class in school.

“What was in Kerrville when you came here?” the granddaughter asked. "Nothing, my child, but a cluster of five small log huts, of one or two rooms, a wilderness of trees, and grass as high as a man, with Indians skulking through." 

When this 1931 interview took place, Rosalie Dietert was 93 years old. 

"Your grandfather built the sixth house," Mrs. Dietert said. "It had three rooms and was built of cypress timbers cut on the saw mill he set up at the place where the ice plant now stands."

Cooking, too, was difficult.

Rosalie Dietert started housekeeping with a skillet and a small Dutch oven, "which was a small round iron pot with three legs and a dented-in lid to hold live coals." She also had a brass kettle holding about one gallon, for cooking utensils.

"Meat there was always plenty, venison, wild turkey, fish, occasionally bear, and later beef. In the beginning there were practically no vegetables. They made a salad of wild parsley and tea from a variety of the small prairie sage, and greens from the 'lamb's quarters' or 'land squatters.'"

However, "in about 1870 some cook stoves were brought west as far as San Antonio, one of which [Rosalie Dietert] became the proud possessor. No more out-door cooking in all sorts of weather -- a stove and a real oven to bake bread and cakes! Her recipes were gotten out, and all sorts of good things were made for holidays and birthdays. The favorites were stollen (loaf cake), pfeffer-nusse (spice cookies), and schnecken (a sweet dough rolled out flat and covered with brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins, currants and pecan meats. This was all rolled up, cut into slices, and baked.)"

The recipe became very popular in early Kerrville, and many early local families enjoyed making schnecken, though many early families called them a different name: "Dietert Cookies."

"Whatever made you leave your home, brave the sea and throw your lot in an unknown land?" asked her great-granddaughter.

"With me it was the spirit of adventure," Dietert replied, "All of the papers were full of the new world and of Texas. With the men it was for the most part a question of political freedom."

Her trip to Texas in the mid-1850s was not easy. "After a hard and perilous journey of eight weeks they landed at Galveston, from where they were transported to Indianola, long since destroyed by a tropical storm, in a two-masted sailboat. From there they made a journey to New Braunfels in wagon transports. This was even more tiring than the ocean voyage, as the land was for the most part covered with water from six to 12 inches in depth. It was the popular belief that the southeastern part of Texas was a swamp, but was later found to be caused by a period of much rainfall. There were no roads, or dry camping places, and danger of Indian raids was ever present. The guides and teamsters brought them safely to the settlement of New Braunfels in July, 1854, five months after leaving their homeland."

Among the things Rosalie Hess Dietert brought with her was a small cloth on which she’d embroidered letters, numbers, and two names, and embroidery ‘sampler.’ It measures 14 by 12 inches. The cloth has yellowed over time, and the threads used were coral and white, which have probably faded.

In white thread, at the top left of the cloth, is the name “Rosalie.” On the bottom right, and in coral thread, beneath a horn of leaves, is the name “Emil.” I have no idea who Emil was, but he was important enough to be included in the sampler – and kept by a young immigrant, carried with her as she crossed the sea to a new land.

Seeing this keepsake helped me imagine a young German woman who came to Texas in the “spirit of adventure.”

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who collects Kerr County and Kerrville historical items, especially photographs. If you have something to share with him, it would make him happy. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead April 25, 2024.

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is free, but not cheap to send. To show your support, forward it to someone who’d like it, or buy one of my books.  Thanks so much. (And thanks to all of you who bought books this week!)

Never miss a story from Joe. Join today for FREE.

Kerr County History 101: How to make cypress shingles

Making cypress shingles: using a maul and froe to split
shingles from a block of cypress.
Click on any image to enlarge.

In 1940, when he was a student at the University of Texas at Austin, Forrest Salter wrote a story about the shingle makers who founded Kerr County. The story was for an English class, "Life and Literature of the Southwest," taught by J. Frank Dobie.

The Salter family published the Kerrville Mountain Sun for three generations, and Forrest Salter placed an ad in his family's newspaper seeking "information on shingle making and the names of any pioneer resident of this section who has seen shingles made in the camps along the Guadalupe River. Please send name or information to The Mountain Sun office."

The resulting story is fascinating and provides details about shingle making I've never seen anywhere else.

One of the individuals Salter interviewed was A. P. "Potter" Brown, the youngest son of Joshua and Sarah Brown. Joshua Brown was the founder of Kerrville, and gave the land for the first county seat in 1856. He came to Kerr County in the late 1840s to harvest the cypress trees along the river and make shingles from them.

Potter Brown described how shingles were made:

"One of the first things the men had to have was a good shingle knife, which was hand-made of iron. The blade was about one quarter inch thick and about twelve inches long. You see, the width of the shingle depended upon the length of the shingle knife. At one end was a loop or ring in the iron, and in this was put a round handle, smoothed down so the palm of the hand would not blister. The handle was about six to nine inches long, and about an inch through, just big enough for a man to get a good 'hand holt' as he used it. The knife was held in the left hand while a wooden mallet, used to hammer the knife down on the block of wood, was wielded with the right.

"Groups of two men would use a big cross-cut saw, or sometimes a good sharp axe, to cut the cypress trees, and then when the logs had been trimmed, they would be cut into convenient sized chunks and hauled or dragged to the camp. The trees were so big that sometimes men could work a whole season on the timber in their neighborhood, and feel free, because the Indians did not come around so often when a settlement had been established.

"Some of the men had shingle horses, a contraption made of a few poles and slabs. It had a mouth where the shingle slab fitted, and when the slab had been placed in the mouth, the 'draw knife' was pulled across the length, giving the shingle the sloping sides which made it possible for them to overlap on a roof. These 'draw knives' were kept razor-sharp, and unlucky was the inquisitive visitor whose hand happened to touch one of their sharp blades. Mud, leaves, or sometimes sawdust was used to stop the blood when such a hand was badly cut.

"The camp was usually under a brush arbor, where the limbs from the Spanish oak, the sycamore, or some other brushy-topped tree was used as protection from the sun. The shingles were put in bundles and tied together with rawhide most of the time, as nails for crating were too precious for use.

"You know, son," Potter Brown concluded, "some of these old abandoned farm houses in the Turtle Creek section still have these hand-made shingles on their roofs."

Forrest Salter interviewed others, too, in addition to Potter Brown. His story includes quotes from Mollie Goss, Mrs. L. C. Watkins, Mr. and Mrs. Dan Rees, Mrs. Fritz Schmidt, and Sarah Surber. Each contributed interesting facts to Salter's story.

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who thinks shingle making would be a lot of hard work. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead April 18, 2024.

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is free, but not cheap to send. To show your support, forward it to someone who’d like it, or buy one of my books.  Thanks so much. (And thanks to all of you who bought books this week!)

Never miss a story from Joe. Join today for FREE.

Kerr History 101: The Shingle Maker who founded Kerrville

Sarah, Joshua and Alonzo Potter Brown, 1873, courtesy of Jan Wilkinson.
(Author's note: they're holding hands.)
Click on any image to enlarge.

Years ago, my friends Sandy and Jon Wolfmueller, of Wolfmueller's Books, gave me a booklet which included a story by Kerrville's Forrest Salter called "The Saga of the Shingle Camp."

Forrest Salter's family published the Kerrville Mountain Sun for three generations, and the shingle camp story was written in 1940 when Salter was a student in J. Frank Dobie's English 342 class at the University of Texas at Austin. The booklet is a collection of student writing from that course, and is titled "Lazy E 342."

Shingle making was the first industry in what is now Kerrville, begun in the mid-1840s when Joshua Brown and a group of men came here to harvest cypress trees and use them to make shingles. 

I've written elsewhere about the shingle makers and the process used to make shingles, relying mostly on Bob Bennett's thorough history of Kerr County. What makes Forrest Salter's story unique are the interviews with local people who actually remembered shingles being made here. He placed an ad in his family's newspaper, asking to interview people with firsthand knowledge of shingle making.

Finding those people in 1940, when he wrote the story, was difficult, I'm sure. Today it would be impossible, because too much time has passed.

The first interview in the story was with A. P. Brown, the youngest son of Kerrville's founder, Joshua D. Brown.

"My father," Brown told Salter, "was one of the first settlers of this country, and he came here to go into the shingle making business.

"A small colony of soldiers of fortune from Tennessee and Mississippi had travelled through this section of the west and had been amazed at the huge trees and dense growth of cypress along the banks of the Guadalupe River and its tributary creeks. They returned to the fort in San Antonio and reported this veritable find. They realized the scarcity of building material in the land of the mesquite, and planned to colonize the river banks for the purpose of making shingles.

Forrest Salter (far right)
and friends at Criders

"Some of the German immigrants, eager for a sight of crystal waters and fertile valleys, a few Tennesseans in search of adventure, and some businessmen of San Antonio came to Kerrville and pitched their tents near one of the larger springs on the river. One spring is where the ice plant now stands in the city of Kerrville, and the Dietert homestead is the site of the first mill."

Gentle reader, the old ice plant is no longer there, but a remnant remains. It stood behind today's One Schreiner Center, in the 800 block of Water Street in downtown Kerrville, and its basement is still there, its old brick walls jutting from the bluff over the river. Ed Hamilton has made the top of the old basement a nice place to view the river below.

"The land was at that time owned by my father," continued A. P. Brown, "who had come from Virginia to Texas and settled in Gonzales County, or DeWitt's Colony as was then called, and over which James Kerr was the overseer. My father moved to this section in 1846, and named the settlement 'Brownsboro.' Later it was called 'Kerrsville' in honor of James Kerr.

"In the party half of the men were put to making shingles, and the other half were on the lookout for Indians. When the shingles were finished, they were taken to San Antonio by oxcart, and traded for supplies. It was a perilous journey, taking five or six days, and as money was scarce, the shingles were bartered for supplies for the camp."

Next week we'll hear again from A. P. "Potter" Brown, as he describes how shingles were made.

Until then, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who thinks making shingles would be a tough way to make a living. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead April 11, 2024.

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is free, but not cheap to send. To show your support, forward it to someone who’d like it, or buy one of my books.  Thanks so much. (And thanks to all of you who bought books this week!)

Never miss a story from Joe. Join today for FREE.

What was the biggest crowd to visit Kerrville – before this year’s eclipse?

The Kerrville depot of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad.
probably around 1900. Click on any image to enlarge.

Morgan Chesky, news correspondent at NBC News (and Tivy graduate!), asked me a question the other day for which I didn’t have a good answer.

Prior to next week’s total solar eclipse, what previous event brought the largest number of people to Kerrville?

Although it’s not a direct answer to that question, I think I know the event which brought the most people as a percentage of Kerrville’s population – in other words, the event which brought the largest multiple of Kerrville residents here.

One event stands out, and possibly brought as many as five times the then-population of Kerrville to our city.

Kerrville Eye, Sep 29 1887

Kerrville had an estimated population of 400 people in 1887; when the railroad terminus was opened here, as many as 2,000 people showed up. Multiplying our current population of about 25,000 times five – Monday’s eclipse would have to see 125,000 visitors to our city to match the festivities in 1887.

The coming of the railroad in 1887 changed everything for Kerrville -- because it allowed commerce with the world beyond our hills.

Until that time all freight came to Kerrville by wagons. Every nail, piece of paper, shoe, piano, and most of the cloth and lumber was hauled over the hills by oxen, with most of the freight coming to us from San Antonio.

In 1887, no other community in the Texas Hill Country was served by a railroad. Fredericksburg didn't get her railroad until November 1, 1913, twenty-six years after Kerrville, and that line was never really profitable. Other nearby communities, like Junction or Rocksprings, never saw a train arrive. Kerrville's trains ran until the 1970s.

I have a copy of the October 6, 1887 "Kerrville Eye," a newspaper of the era. The publisher printed 2,000 copies of the edition -- a huge number, considering Kerrville probably had less than 400 residents.

In the issue several other newspapers' reports of the railway's arrival in Kerrville was reprinted. "Plucky little Kerrville," the San Angelo Standard reported, "has obtained her railroad, and if ever a town and county deserve the iron horse, Kerrville and Kerr County did. A bonus of $50,000 was raised in the middle of the drouth and $46,000 of that bonus has been raised in cash; a few more thousand had to be raised to buy the right of way over land belonging to fossils of the tertiary period, a few of which are settled in that county. We hope the boon for which Kerr County has worked so strenuously will prove an even greater blessing than they anticipate."

Map of SAAP routes

The Burnet Hero declared "The Aransas Pass Road has reached Kerrville. The 'Eye' therefore excusable for being jubilant and winking many triumphant winks, as it worked hard to bring that town and section to the front of the railroad men. We know how it is ourselves and don't blame the 'Eye' for feeling proud. The 'Hero' got out an extra to celebrate the completion of the Dallas, Granite and Gulf road to Burnet, as it was the first air line to the point from the north -- but alas it was an air line with a vengeance. It was built of air, by air, through air."

According to the Texas Transportation Museum website, “at 11:45 AM on October 6, 1887, the first train arrived in Kerrville. On board the six Pullmans were 502 passengers, 200 from San Antonio, 131 from Boerne, 141 from Comfort and 30 from Center Point. Altogether this was 200 more people than actually lived in Kerrville. It was a banner day for the town, with parades and speeches.”

There were more than speeches and parades that day: there was also business to be transacted.

According to the 'Eye,' "A large lot sale will take place here about the 22nd of October. The magnificent ground near the depot has been laid off in lots by Capt. Schreiner, and will be sold that day. This is going to be a town. Don't miss the sale. Come and bid on a few lots."

Then later, a few inches down, the 'Eye' continues: "Visitors to Kerrville, did you ever see a prettier site for a town? Kerrville has the prettiest depot grounds of any town on the Aransas Pass [railway]. Capt. Schreiner has cut this fine plot of ground up into lots... You will regret to the end of your days if you fail to attend the sale, and purchase a lot." 

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who remembers the freight trains rolling into Kerrville when he was a boy. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead  April 4, 2024.

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is free, but not cheap to send. To show your support, forward it to someone who’d like it, or buy one of my books.  Thanks so much. (And thanks to all of you who bought books this week!)

Never miss a story from Joe. Join today for FREE.