The Easter Fires
Fredericksburg, Gillespie County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Blazing on the hills around Fredericksburg each Easter Eve, combined with a local pageant, these fires recall an old tale. In March 1847, when Comanches and whites signed a major peace treaty, the Indians lighted huge signal fires on these hills. To calm her children's fears, one mother-- recalling Easter fires in her native Germany-- told them the smoke came from pots in which the Easter Bunny was dyeing eggs with flowers. As the tale spread and pioneers kindled the fires in each year of peace with the Indians, the local yearly celebration arose.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The bonfires that still blaze on the hills above Fredericksburg each Easter Eve grew out of a moment of fragile peace. In March 1847, as Comanche leaders and German settlers signed a major treaty, the Comanches lit signal fires on these heights; to soothe her frightened children, one German mother said the smoke came from the Easter Bunny boiling flowers to dye eggs. As the story spread, settlers kindled the fires each year that peace held, and a beloved local tradition was born.
Why it matters
The Easter Fires bind together German immigrant folklore and one of the few enduring peace treaties between settlers and the Comanche, showing how a frontier's hopes and fears could crystallize into lasting community ritual.
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Related events
- · 1847 treaty between Comanches and Fredericksburg settlers
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Vereins Kirche
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The Vereins Kirche was raised in the summer of 1847 as Fredericksburg's church for all denominations, its school, and its community hall, built soon after commissioner John O. Meusebach secured a landmark peace treaty with the Comanche. Standing in the middle of Main Street, the octagonal "coffee-mill church" was a symbol of the new German colony until it was razed in 1896. A replica, first used as a museum and library, was built in the 1930s.
Cross Mountain
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Long an Indian signal point rising 1,915 feet, this limestone hill was recorded in 1847 by German geologist Ferdinand Roemer, who arrived as German colonists settled the Fredericksburg area. Settler John Christian Durst, finding an old timber cross on its summit, named it Kreuzberg, or Cross Mountain. Its Easter fires recall both a German folk tradition and the 1847 Meusebach treaty that made peace with the Comanche nation.
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German-born Henry C. Keese settled this land in the 1870s and built a farmhouse of wood and hand-hewn native rock, raising his family through the hard realities of frontier life in the Texas Hill Country. The inscription recalls that the Keeses endured attacks during a period of ongoing conflict with Native peoples defending their lands, and that the family held the homesite for nearly a century. Faint traces of the early farm still mark the ground.
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