Schiege House
Round Top, Fayette County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Prussian immigrants Carl Johann Rudolph (Charles Henry) (b. 1815) and Caroline (Schubert) Schiege acquired land here in 1861. Only one of their four children, Charles Henry, Jr., (1858-1935), survived to adulthood. Charles Henry, Jr., built a 2-story home at this site abut 1885, the year he married Emma Frenzel. Emma died in 1892. In 1893 Schiege married Marie Becker; together they reared ten children. Schiege established a local cigar factory and also served as Round Top justice of the peace, mayor, city marshall, and alderman. Charles and Marie Schiege are buried in nearby Florida Chapel Cemetery. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Prussian immigrants Charles and Caroline Schiege acquired land in this German-settled corner of Fayette County in 1861. Their only surviving child, Charles Henry Jr., built a two-story home here about 1885 and, after being widowed, raised ten children with his second wife. Beyond farming, he ran a local cigar factory and served Round Top as justice of the peace, mayor, marshal, and alderman.
Why it matters
The Schiege family typifies the industrious German immigrants who built the towns and small industries of Central Texas.
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Related people
- · Charles Henry Schiege Jr.
- · Caroline Schiege
- · Emma Frenzel
- · Marie Becker
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Schiege Cigar Factory Manager's House
Round Top, TX
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.
Wandke House
Round Top, TX
Johann Traugott Wandke left Prussia in 1855, settling near La Grange with his wife and daughters before moving to Round Top around 1860. About 1863 he built this native-stone home and workshop, where his skills as a mechanic and cabinetmaker found their finest expression in the pipe organs he crafted from local cedar. His instruments served several area churches, including Round Top's Bethlehem Lutheran Church.
Mayer Cemetery
Burton, TX
The Mayer Cemetery marks the German community of Winedale, settled from 1836 in a district first opened by Stephen F. Austin's Old 300 colonists, some of them wine makers who gave the area its name. Brothers Henry and Martin Mayer arrived from Germany in 1846 and by 1864 had built the area's first cotton gin and a mill. The burial ground, set aside in 1876, holds Mayer and Menn family members along with blacksmiths, farmers, and ministers, and veterans from the Civil War through the Korean War.
Steiner & Dallmeyer Building
Burton, TX
Built by 1875 to house the Burton Farmers Co-op, this commercial building took on new life in 1903 when German immigrants William Dallmeyer and Joe Steiner opened a mercantile store that ran for more than fifty years. It held the town's first telephone and served as a cotton-marketing hub, its double-gable roof, wooden balustrade, and 1913 false-front addition still marking Burton's main street.