John Gawlik House
Panna Maria, Karnes County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1858 by a Polish immigrant from upper Silesia, the John Gawlik House is the oldest stone home in Panna Maria. Characteristics of rural upper Silesian homes and this house are steeply pitched gable roofs with large overhangs covering the porch, two small windows for ventilation, and interior meat smoking rooms connected to fireplaces. Gawlik, a stone mason, also assisted in building Panna Maria’s immaculate conception church and other local homes. John and his wife, Johanna, lived in the home until Johanna’s death in 1899. Thereafter, the Theo and Eva Pollok family and then subsequent generations of the Emma and Joe J. Janysek family have owned the property. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2014
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1858 by a stonemason who had emigrated from Upper Silesia, the John Gawlik House is the oldest stone home in Panna Maria, the first permanent Polish settlement in America. Its steep gabled roof with deep porch overhangs, tiny ventilation windows, and interior meat-smoking rooms carry the building traditions of rural Silesia straight to the Texas prairie. Gawlik also helped raise the settlement's Immaculate Conception church and other homes, and the house has passed through several families since.
Why it matters
It is a tangible link to the founding of the oldest Polish community in the United States, where immigrants rebuilt Old World architecture and faith on the American frontier.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Gawlik
Related events
- · Founding of Panna Maria (Polish settlement)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Cemetery
Cestohowa, TX
The burial ground for the Czestochowa parish was pieced together from acre donations in the 1870s and became a chronicle in stone of Polish immigrant life in Texas. Its markers—many inscribed in Polish until the 1930s—record the parish's founding priests, its authors and pastors, and the toll of the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, which took Frances Gawlik and three of her children within a single week. Among more than 800 graves lie dozens of military veterans, from Confederate soldiers to men who served through Vietnam.
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church
Cestohowa, TX
This parish grew out of one of the oldest Polish colonies in America, planted in Karnes County by immigrants who had followed the pioneers of nearby Panna Maria. After lightning destroyed the "Mother Colony" church in 1877, the Czestochowa settlers built their own sanctuary—a decision that stirred real controversy among the tight-knit Polish community before ending in reconciliation, sealed by a gift of a painting of Our Lady of Czestochowa, Poland's patroness. Blessed in 1878 and enlarged in the 1930s, the church anchored a community that Americanized even its spelling, from Czestochowa to Cestohowa.
St. Ann's Catholic Church
Kosciusko, TX
In 1880 some sixty Silesian Polish families bought land in this quiet corner of Wilson County and named their community Kosciuszko for the Polish-born hero of the American Revolution. They opened a one-room Catholic school, St. Ann's, in 1892 and raised a large wooden church of the same name in 1898, one of the biggest in the county. Through choirs, societies, and a growing parish, St. Ann's became the enduring heart of a Polish community that still keeps its ancestors' traditions.
Kenedy Alien Detention Camp Cemetery
Kenedy, TX
During World War II the United States interned not only its own residents of German, Japanese, and Italian ancestry but also civilians seized from Latin American nations, holding many as bargaining chips to exchange for Americans trapped overseas. The camp at Kenedy opened in April 1942 and passed more than 3,500 internees through its fences over thirty months before becoming a branch prisoner-of-war camp for Fort Sam Houston. Five people who died in confinement lie buried here, their graves marked by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1976 and the ground designated a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2005.