Biry-Arh Property
Castroville, Medina County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Castroville was founded by Empresario Henri Castro in 1844. By the mid-1840s, immigrants, many from the Alsatian region in Europe, began to settle here. The unique Alsatian culture was recreated in the countryside of Medina County and largely remains intact. An excellent example of early Alsatian immigrant architecture, the Biry house was built between 1847 and 1850 by Jean Jacques (Jacob) Biry (1816-1868). He was born in Oberentzen, Alsace, and immigrated to Texas in December 1846 at the age of 30. In 1847, this lot was purchased by Jacob and his business partner, Etienne (Stephen) Ahr (1821-1903), also from Alsace. According to deed records, Jacob and Stephen purchased several properties jointly. Soon, Jacob began constructing a home on this site. On June 12, 1849, Jacob married Marianna Bilhartz (1828-1920), the sister of Stephen Ahr’s wife, Anne Marie Bilhartz (1830-1913). The Birys raised their four boys and Marianna’s four brothers in this house. This historic home was built of local semi-regular shaped limestone stacked with a lime-based mortar. With asymmetric and steep roofs, thick walls and small rooms, the house reflects a humble lifestyle of hardworking people with a sense of tradition. Wide cypress planks or large flat flagstone covered the floors along with cedar shakes on the roof. Constructed room by room over a period of several years, the house consists of two front rooms, a rear lean-to and a loft, reachable by a wooden stairway. The simple yet unique architecture of the Biry house enhances the heritage of Medina County and Castroville. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2016
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Castroville was founded in 1844 by empresario Henri Castro, who drew immigrants from the Alsace region of Europe to recreate their distinctive culture in the Medina County countryside. Between 1847 and 1850, Alsatian settler Jacob Biry built this modest limestone house room by room, its steep roofs, thick walls, and small rooms reflecting the traditions and hard work of its builders. Biry and his business partner Stephen Ahr, who married sisters, raised their families here in one of the finest surviving examples of early Alsatian immigrant architecture in Texas.
Why it matters
The house preserves the rare transplanted Alsatian folk culture that made Castroville one of the most distinctive immigrant communities in nineteenth-century Texas.
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Related people
- · Henri Castro
- · Jacob Biry
- · Stephen Ahr
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church
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Among the German settlers who reached this Castro colony in the 1840s were Lutherans who first worshiped in their homes until Rev. Christian Oefinger arrived from Bremen by way of Galveston. They organized Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1852 with a dozen charter members and, gathering their own rock, sand, and timber, built a stone church and parsonage. Pastor Oefinger even held Castroville's first public school classes in the church in 1857, and the congregation remains active today.
Vance Hotel and Store
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Built in 1849 of local limestone and cypress, this thick-walled building shows the Alsatian architecture that immigrant colonists brought to Castroville. It began as the home, store, and post office of Swiss merchant Caesar Monod, and by the 1860s John and Rowena Vance had added a store wing and a second story of guest rooms. With a nearby bath house and kitchen, the Vance Hotel offered rest to travelers on the Eagle Pass–San Antonio Road.
Ihnken Family Cemetery
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Early Castroville colonists—Dutch and German immigrants who arrived on Henri Castro's ships in the 1840s—rest in this small family plot, where Marie Becker Ihnken was buried in 1847. Her son Gerhard, a leading citizen, farmed vast lands and ran a sawmill, store, and orchard, and is credited with bringing the area's first reaper and binder. One of Medina County's oldest cemeteries, it holds eight marked Ihnken graves and, by tradition, a freedman who worked for the family; it has stayed inactive since 1950 to protect unmarked graves.
Renken Cemetery
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German immigrant Henry Renken opened this small burial ground in 1876 to lay his first wife, Lissette, to rest on land he had earlier sold to a neighbor. A pillar of the Alsatian-founded town of Castroville, Renken served as alderman and mayor and belonged to the Masonic Lodge before being buried here beside Lissette in 1885. The diminutive graveyard now sits surrounded by Castroville Regional Park.