Cherry Spring Schoolhouse
Fredericksburg, Gillespie County, Texas
Marker Inscription
School classes for the children of German immigrants in the Cherry Spring community were held in homes until 1885, when this limestone schoolhouse was completed on land donated by H. Bratherich. On dedication day, students formed a parade to the new building. The Cherry Spring Schoolhouse served the nearby residents until 1962, when it was consolidated with Fredericksburg. Today it is a landmark of early education in Gillespie County. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The German families of the Cherry Spring community taught their children in private homes until 1885, when a sturdy limestone schoolhouse was finally completed on land donated by H. Bratherich — an occasion so joyful that on dedication day the students paraded together to their new building. The little stone school served the surrounding countryside for nearly eighty years, until it consolidated with Fredericksburg in 1962. It remains a landmark of early education in Gillespie County.
Why it matters
The schoolhouse embodies the value German immigrant settlers placed on education and the enduring community institutions they built in the Texas Hill Country.
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Related people
- · H. Bratherich
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Old Cherry Spring School (Das Alte Schulhaus)
Fredericksburg, TX
German immigrants founded the Cherry Spring community around 1850, teaching their children in private homes until nobleman Wilhelm Marschall von Bieberstein deeded ten acres in 1859 to a group of settlers so they could build a proper schoolhouse. Classes filled the original part of this building from 1860 to 1878, after which it served the community as a place of worship — and in 1905 became the birthplace of Christ Lutheran Church. One modest stone building held the settlement's schooling and its faith.
Durst House
Fredericksburg, TX
Carl Durst arrived in the German settlement country of the Texas Hill Country in 1873 and started with a single-room cabin, adding on as his family and fortunes grew. The house expanded room by room over the decades—including an 1896 stone addition that sometimes housed teachers for the nearby Cherry Mountain School, on land the Dursts had donated. What survives is less a single building than a family's life told in wood and stone.
Crabapple School
Fredericksburg, TX
German immigrants who reached Fredericksburg in the late 1840s spread into the surrounding hills and, in 1878, raised a sturdy native-limestone schoolhouse that opened to about forty children. The land came from farmer Mathias Schmidt, who by local tradition won the privilege in a foot race. Over the years the building did double and triple duty, sheltering a teacherage, a post office, a Lutheran congregation, and the community band before merging into the Fredericksburg school district in 1957.
Site of Prairie Mountain School
Llano vicinity, TX
German immigrants and pioneer settlers built the community once called Starks in the mid-1800s, and in 1906 a nearby school was relocated here and renamed Prairie Mountain School. The one-room schoolhouse doubled as a place of worship, a pattern common in thinly settled country, and a larger building followed in 1924. The school served until district consolidation in 1948, and the building lived on as a community center for decades more.