HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Charles F.A. and Emilie Hummel House

San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas

Marker Inscription

After both of his parents died, four-year-old Charles F.A. Hummel (1854-1935) was adopted by his uncle and aunt, Charles A. and Caroline (Scher) Hummel. Charles F.A. worked with his adoptive father at Charles Hummel and Son Guns and Ammunition. He later served as city treasurer and city auditor and was active in the German community. In 1877, he married Emilie Wagner (1855-1927); the couple had six children. They hired prominent architects James Wahrenberger and Albert Beckmann to design a two-story limestone house, completed in 1884. The Italianate-influenced l-plan house features a projecting pavilion, ornate full-height front gallery, and notable stonework in the quoins and arched masonry windows. The Hummel family owned the house until 1941.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

In the decades after the Civil War, San Antonio's prosperous German community left a lasting mark on the city's streets and skyline. Charles F.A. Hummel, orphaned young and raised in the family gun-and-ammunition trade, rose to serve as city treasurer and auditor while remaining a pillar of that German world. In 1884 he and his wife Emilie commissioned architects Wahrenberger and Beckmann to build this ornate two-story limestone house, its Italianate pavilion, full-height gallery, and carved quoins announcing a family that had arrived.

Why it matters

The house is a tangible piece of the German immigrant story that shaped Texas commerce and civic life in the Gilded Age, when newcomers helped build the institutions of a growing frontier city.

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Related people

  • · Charles F.A. Hummel
  • · Emilie Wagner Hummel
  • · James Wahrenberger
  • · Albert Beckmann

Themes & tags

ImmigrationIndustry & InventionHome

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