Jewish Cemetery
Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Jewish Cemetery Established 1907 Historic Texas Cemetery - 2002
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Established in 1907, this burial ground served the small Jewish community that had put down roots in the Gonzales area during the early twentieth century. Set aside according to Jewish tradition, it stands as a modest but enduring record of a faith community on the Central Texas landscape.
Why it matters
Small-town Jewish cemeteries like this one document the quiet, widespread presence of Jewish families across rural America, far from the big-city communities usually associated with their history.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Remschel House
Gonzales, TX
Built around 1907 by local craftsman Fred Meisenhelder, this one-story Victorian cottage was the home of Julius Frederick Remschel and his wife Luella. Remschel was the son of a German immigrant who had founded a local lumber company in 1888, and the house reflects its setting: siding milled from locally grown cypress, set atop brick columns from the Gonzales Sunset Brick and Tile Company. It stands as a record of a family and a town building with the materials at hand.
Two Miles North to Site of Maurin Quarry
Gonzales, TX
Two miles north stood the Maurin Quarry, which from 1882 to 1908 supplied sandstone for buildings across a cluster of South Texas towns—Gonzales, Shiner, Moulton, Flatonia, and Hallettsville. Workers first dynamited the stone, then cut it by hand, hauling it out by wagon until a railroad reached the area. Its founder, Firmin Maurin, had come all the way from Marseilles, France.
The Fritz Zedler Home
Luling, TX
Born in Germany in 1840, Fritz Zedler came to Texas as a boy and, after moving to Luling in 1884, built up the thriving enterprise known as Zedler's Mill. In 1900 he raised this ten-room, four-porch house from his own plans, a monument to his prosperity. It stayed in the family until 1964 and was later bought and carefully restored, earning recognition as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
The Town of Waelder
Waelder, TX
When the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railroad pushed through Gonzales County in 1876, the town of Waelder was laid out as a shipping point, and the thriving community of Hopkinsville simply moved down to the tracks to join it. The railroad named the town for its attorney, German-born lawyer and legislator Frederick Jacob Waelder. Its growth drew on the three great waves of German immigration that shaped nineteenth-century Texas.