There are several places that we have visited in the centre of Texas, the area bounded roughly by Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. This is an area that varies from ranch land to Texas Hill Country in the west. On this page we have a few places in this region that we have visited, excluding Austin which has its own page.

Dick's Classic Garage, San Marcos

We have visited several museums of historic vehicles in the USA, but Dick’s Classic Garage in San Marcos is one of the best that we have found.  There are over 80 vehicles dating between 1901 and 1959, all in an exceptionally good state of preservation. The museum is named after its founder, Dick Burdick. Click Tab 2 to see some of the cars on display inside the museum.

Glass bottomed boat, Meadows Center, San Marcos

San Marcos was founded in 1851 at a place where where around 200 springs feed the headwaters of the San Marcos River. The area was already a major stop on the Chisolm Trail due to its abundance of water.  In the 1940s an amusement park called Aquarena Springs was built at one end of Spring Lake, an artificial lake that contains several of the San Marcos Springs. The park featured glass bottomed boats and a submersible theatre where visitors experienced and underwater world featuring mermaids, clowns, and a swimming pig called Ralph. Visitor numbers declined through the 1980s and by the early 1990s it was a shadow of its former self. In 1994 the site was purchased by Texas State University. They brought back the glass bottomed boats but visitor numbers continued to decline so they decided to turn it into an environmental preservation and research centre. The remnants of the amusement park were removed and former hotel (visible over the glass bottomed boat in the picture) now houses volunteers. When we visited to take a ride in one of the glass bottomed boats it was called the Aquarena Center, but it has now been renamed the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. 

Reconstruction of Vereins Kirche, Fredericksburg

Every so often when travelling in the USA you come across a place that clearly has its origins in another culture. Fredericksburg is one such place. Baron Otfried Han Freiherr von Meusebach arrived in Texas from Germany in 1845 where he became plain John O. Meusebach. He travelled initially to the German settlement of New Braunfels, but in anticipation of the arrival of more German settlers he moved further north west to find a site for a new settlement. He called it Friedrichsburg in honour of Prince Frederick of Prussia, but name  was later changed to Fredericksburg.  In 1847 Meusebach met with several Comanche tribes and negotiated a treaty that shared the land along the Llano River, a rare example of an Indian Treaty that was not subsequently broken. The German population of the town grew and Fredericksburg became a manufacturing centre with quarries, cement plant, iron & steel works, tannery and furniture factory. Most Germans did not support slavery, so during the Civil War Fredericksburg was a pro-Union outpost in Confederate Texas. Even in the 20th century, the town remained an island of German culture and language surrounded by an ocean of Texan culture. One of the first buildings in Fredericksburg was the Vereins Kirche which served as town hall, school, fort, and a multi-denomination church.  It was demolished in 1896 but a replica was built in 1936 which is used as a museum dedicated to the history of the town.  

Central Texas

Kammlah Barn, Pioneer Museum, Fredericksburg

The reconstructed Vereins Kirche forms part of a open air museum that was formed in 1935 to preserve the history of Fredericksburg and the surrounding Texas Hill Country. The Pioneer Museum  has preserved nine historic buildings on its 1.2 hectare (3 acre) site in downtown Fredericksburg. This includes a set of buildings that were owned by the Kammlah family. Their house dates back to 1849 when it was a single room structure, but it was substantially extended over the years. The Kammlah family also built the barn shown here and a smokehouse. Four generations of the Kammlah family had lived in the property when it was purchased by the Gillespie County Historical Society in 1955. Inside the barn is a machine that was essential for settlers living in the Hill Country, a Machine for making Wire Fencing. Click Tab 2 to see the Wire Fencing Machine.   

St Francis Catholic Church, Waco

The Waco were an Indian tribe who had a village here from the 1770s. They farmed the land around their village until European settlement force them to move further north. An 1872 treaty with the US Government resulted in their removal to the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).The first settlers arrived in the area in the 1830s and the town of Waco was laid out in 1849 on the banks of the Brazos River. In 1866 plans were drawn  up for a suspension bridge across the river. This opened in 1870 and Waco became the place for herds of cattle using the following the Chisholm Trail to cross the river. At first sight it seems that Waco must have been the site of a Spanish Mission, but St Francis Catholic Church was built long after the end of the Spanish colonial era. It was completed in 1931 to replace a wooden church that burned in 1928. In 1993 Waco hit the headlines around the world when law enforcement officers surrounded a former ranch that was the compound of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect suspected of sexual abuse and illegally stockpiling weapons. After a siege lasting 51 days the FBI launched an attack on the compound and during the attack fire broke out and destroyed the ranch. Around 80 members of the Branch Davidian sect died. Nine surviving members of the sect were subsequently convicted of firearms offences.  Click Tab 2 to see the Suspension Bridge across the Brazos River.

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County Courthouse, Bandera

Bandera is the county seat of Bandera County in Texas Hill Country. Bandera means ‘flag’ and it comes from the nearby Bandera Pass. It is thought that the pass gained it name from flags placed on it to warn Indians not to enter the area.  Plans for the town date back to 1853 and it came into existence in 1856 when Bandera County was formed. Many of the early settlers were Polish immigrants.  After the Civil War the town boomed as a staging area for cattle being driven up the Western Trail, but the local Hill Country terrain proved more suited to raising sheep and goats. However, it is the cattle driving history that persists and Bandera styles itself as the ‘Cowboy Capital of the World’. Although the population has never exceeded much more than 1,000, a legacy of Bandera’s boom years is its impressive County Courthouse.   Designed by San Antonio architect B.F. Trester It was built in 1890-91 in the Renaissance Revival style.

© Mike  Elsden 1981 - 2025

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