Pape Log Cabin
Fredericksburg, Gillespie County, Texas
Marker Inscription
One of the oldest structures in Fredericksburg, built by communal effort for the family of Friedrich Pape (1813-94). Pape, his wife Katherine, and a daughter arrived in galveston in Nov. 1845 from Germany. three Pape children died on the trip. The family was among the first forty to settle in fredericksburg, and soon after arriving in May 1846, this cabin was erected to shelter the ailing Mrs. Pape. the post oak logs were cut nearby, and the first roof was probably thatched grass. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1974
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Friedrich Pape, his wife Katherine, and a surviving daughter reached Galveston from Germany in late 1845, having lost three children on the voyage, and were among the first forty families to settle Fredericksburg. Soon after arriving in May 1846, neighbors joined in communal labor to raise this post-oak log cabin to shelter the ailing Mrs. Pape. Its hand-cut logs and once-thatched roof make it one of the oldest structures in town.
Why it matters
The cabin embodies the German immigrant wave that gave the Texas Hill Country its enduring character and built its first communities by mutual aid.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Friedrich Pape
- · Katherine Pape
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Gillespie County
Fredericksburg, TX
Once crossed by the trails of roving Indian peoples, these Hill Country lands were settled by German immigrant pioneers in 1846, with a group of Mormons founding Zodiac the next year. The county was created and organized in 1848 and named for Richard Addison Gillespie, a Texas frontier defender and Mexican War captain who was killed at the Battle of Monterrey in 1846. Fredericksburg became its seat.
The Patton Home
Fredericksburg, TX
Business leader Albert Lee Patton and his wife Emma built the first four rooms of this limestone home in the mid-1870s, soon after buying the property in the German-settled town of Fredericksburg. Later additions, including a three-window front bay, expanded the house as the family and the town prospered. It remained in Patton hands for more than a century, passing to a daughter before leaving the family in 1978.
Market Square (Mark Platz)
Fredericksburg, TX
From Fredericksburg's founding in 1846, Market Square—Marktplatz to the German settlers—stood at the town's center, then still ringed by heavy forest. The octagonal Vereins Kirche rose the next year in the middle of Main Street, serving at once as church, school, meeting hall, and a refuge in case of raids, while a jail and public schoolhouse followed in the 1850s. Rebuilt in the 1930s as a pioneer memorial, the church became the county's first museum and library, and the square remains the community's gathering place.
Klingelhoeffer House
Fredericksburg, TX
Johann Jost Klingelhoeffer left Europe in 1846 seeking freedom and opportunity, sailing to the port of Indianola and making his way through New Braunfels to Fredericksburg. Around 1854 he built his home in the German Fachwerk, or half-timbered, style—oak timbers filled with handmade brick and two ground-floor rooms divided by a dogtrot breezeway. Additions after the Civil War and again in 1955 reshaped the house, but it endures as an example of the distinctive Texas-German building tradition unique to the Hill Country.