Riesel
Riesel, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Fertile soil, good water,and available rial transportation attracted cotton farmers to this area after the Civil War. They were soon joined by German settlers from Washington County led by the Rev. Friedrick Von Schleumbach. A nearby postal station known as Roddy first served the area, but a town developed here following construction of a cotton gin by William Henry Riesel in 1890. The townsite of Riesel was platted by the Rev. Von Schleumbach and the new settlement grew as an early agricultural center of southeastern McLennan County.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After the Civil War, fertile soil, good water, and rail access drew cotton farmers to this stretch of southeastern McLennan County, soon joined by German settlers from Washington County led by the Rev. Friedrich Von Schleumbach. The nearby postal stop of Roddy served the area until William Henry Riesel built a cotton gin here in 1890, giving a town a reason to grow. Von Schleumbach platted the townsite, and Riesel took shape as a local agricultural center.
Why it matters
Riesel captures how postwar cotton, German immigration, and the mechanized gin combined to plant new farming communities across Central Texas.
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Related people
- · Rev. Friedrich Von Schleumbach
- · William Henry Riesel
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Friedens Evangelical and Reformed United Church of Christ
Riesel, TX
German immigrants who helped settle Riesel organized this "Peace" congregation in 1903, first meeting in a schoolhouse before building a sanctuary near the present cemetery. When the community shifted, the frame church was set on skids and hauled by mule teams to its current site. Services were held in German into the 1940s, and the congregation built a new sanctuary in 1952.
Friedens Cemetery
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In 1903, eight German families around the Riesel area banded together to found a Lutheran congregation, and with it a burial ground on land given by Philip Engelke. Even after the church itself relocated into Riesel in 1908, the community kept burying its dead here, and the graves — some with epitaphs cut in German — became a record of the German immigrants who farmed this stretch of central Texas. A cemetery committee still tends the grounds today.