Schiege Cigar Factory Manager's House
Round Top, Fayette County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Charles Schiege employed mainly single men to manufacture cigars in his factory. The workers were provided with sleeping quarters in the attic area of the factory building. The factory manager, however, was often a family man, and to house these employees Schiege built a cottage of German vernacular design at this site about the time the factory was opened in 1882. Early cigar factory manager Paul Herman Helmecke (1864-1894) and his wife Martha Mary Neuthard, daughter of prominent local Pastor Adam Neuthard, lived here with their five children in the 1880s and 1890s. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Around 1882, German immigrant Charles Schiege opened a cigar factory at Round Top, staffing it largely with single men who slept in the building's attic. For his factory manager — usually a married man — Schiege built this modest German vernacular cottage. Among its early residents was manager Paul Herman Helmecke, who lived here with his wife Martha and their five children in the 1880s and 1890s, part of the close-knit German community that shaped this corner of Fayette County.
Why it matters
The cottage reflects the German immigrant craft economy of the Texas Hill Country, where small factories and the families who ran them left a lasting cultural imprint.
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Related people
- · Charles Schiege
- · Paul Herman Helmecke
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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