Muenster
Muenster, Cooke County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1889 brothers Anton, August, and Emil Flusche contracted to sell 22,000 acres of this land along the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad. Jot Gunter gave 25 acres for a school, church, cemetery, and park. The first Mass, celebrated Dec. 8, 1889, marked the official beginning of this German Catholic town. Despite drought, typhoid fever, and tornadoes destroying the first two church buildings, the area grew and farming and dairy business increased. Farmers established an insurance company and a marketing group for buying products in bulk. An oil boom in 1926 added to the prosperity. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1889 the Flusche brothers contracted to sell 22,000 acres along the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, and Jot Gunter donated land for a school, church, cemetery, and park. The first Mass on December 8, 1889, marked the founding of this German Catholic town, whose settlers persevered through drought, typhoid, and tornadoes that twice destroyed their church. Cooperative ventures in insurance and bulk marketing, along with a 1926 oil boom, carried the farming and dairy community into prosperity.
Why it matters
Muenster is a lasting example of the tight-knit German Catholic immigrant colonies that shaped the culture and agriculture of North Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Anton Flusche
- · August Flusche
- · Emil Flusche
- · Jot Gunter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Chisholm Trail in Denton County
Sanger, TX
For nearly two decades after the Civil War, the Chisholm Trail carried millions of longhorns north from Texas to the Kansas railheads, and its path ran the full length of Denton County from Elizabethtown to just north of Bolivar. Returning veterans found scarce jobs and neglected ranch lands, but the booming cattle drives of 1867 to 1884 pumped money into the state and county. Tens of thousands of cowboys worked the trail, seeding heritage ranches that have stayed in the same families for over a century.
Jacob Frederick Elsasser
Sanger, TX
Born in Germany in 1834, Jacob Frederick Elsasser immigrated to America and ran a cigar factory in Chicago with his father and brothers until the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed it. He then resettled in Texas with his Swiss-born wife Catharine, farming east of Sanger, and after their first house burned they built this residence in 1901. A daughter's family lived in the home into 1939.
First National Bank of Bowie
Bowie, TX
Chartered on March 10, 1890, the First National Bank of Bowie was the oldest financial institution in Montague County, opening eight years after the town itself sprang up along the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway. Starting with $50,000 in capital, it weathered hard times to become the town's only surviving bank by 1931. For more than a century it backed local charities and offered a gathering place for community groups.
City of Krum
Krum, TX
Krum grew from an 1876 pioneer settlement known as the Jackson community into a proper town in 1886, when the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway bought land and named the station for railroad official Charles K. Krum. Stores, churches, and a post office quickly followed, but it was the region's rich soil that made Krum famous, drawing renown as one of the largest inland grain markets of the early 1900s. Local wheat even won the grand prize for 'Rainbow Flour' at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.