HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Stieler Ranch House

Comfort, Kendall County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Designed and built 1890-1892 by Herman Stieler, German rock mason and local sheep rancher. He came from Germany; hauled freight for Charles Schreiner Company and to Camp Verde. Made this place a shearing station for fellow ranchers. Coaches from nearby stage line often stopped for food, repairs. Style is typical of era. Each floor has two rooms on either side of central "dog trot" hall. Interior was remodeled in 1937. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1970

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

German-born stonemason and sheep rancher Herman Stieler designed and built this rock house in 1890โ€“1892 in the Hill Country near Comfort. He had hauled freight for the Schreiner Company and to Camp Verde before making his place a shearing station where fellow ranchers gathered and passing stagecoaches stopped for food and repairs. Its two-rooms-per-floor plan around a central 'dog-trot' hall was typical of the era.

Why it matters

German immigrants like Stieler built the stone houses and ranching economy that still give the Texas Hill Country its distinctive character.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • ยท Herman Stieler

Themes & tags

ImmigrationWestward ExpansionFrontier HistoryHome

Nearby & related markers

Wahrmund-Priess House

Fredericksburg, TX

This stone house rose during the great wave of German immigration that gave the Texas Hill Country its distinctive character. Johann Christian Wahrmund brought his family to Texas in 1846 and settled along Bear Creek, where the original portion of the house was built between 1852 and 1866. Prussian immigrant Johann Priess bought the property in 1866, and his family enlarged and held it for another sixty-five years.

Ferdinand Hohenberger Farmstead

Comfort, TX

Ferdinand Hohenberger and his wife Katherine Schultze left Bremen in 1855, endured a 73-day Atlantic crossing to Galveston, and first settled among the German colonists near Luckenbach. In 1871 the family bought this land in the Hill Country, farming it while Ferdinand also hauled freight along the hard road between San Antonio and the coastal port of Indianola. He deeded farms to his sons in 1882, and the property stayed in the family for decades, its quiet graves marking generations of Hohenbergers.

Rausch Ranch Home

Fredericksburg, TX

German immigrant Nicolaus Gerhard bought this land in 1856 and lived with his son Michael in a log cabin until local German stonemasons built this sturdy house from field rock in 1866. Michael sold the place in 1904 to another skilled stonemason, Robert Rausch, whose family kept it as headquarters for their ranch until 1976. The house's hand-cut stone walls reflect the building traditions the Hill Country's German settlers carried from the old country. Restored in the twentieth century, it endures as a monument to frontier craftsmanship.

Baethge-Behrend Homestead

Fredericksburg, TX

A German family immigrated to Texas in 1854 and, after moving about the central part of the state, settled roughly 120 acres in the Fredericksburg area in 1867. Their homestead centered on a house built of handmade clay-and-straw brick alongside a cluster of outbuildings. Their sons inherited the farm, and the family held it until 1937, when it passed to another German-Texan family.