Zabcikville
Temple, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
JAN ZABCIK SR. (1810-1881), HIS WIFE, ANNA HRUSKA (1825-1900), AND DAUGHTERS JOHANNA AND KATERINA TRAVELED TO GALVESTON, TEXAS FROM MORAVIA IN 1856 ALONG WITH JAN’S BROTHER, MARTIN ZABCIK, AND SISTER, ANNA ZABCIK. ONCE IN TEXAS, THE ZABCIKS MADE THEIR WAY TO CAT SPRINGS IN AUSTIN COUNTY. WHILE LIVING AND WORKING IN PARTS OF AUSTIN AND WASHINGTON COUNTIES, THE ZABCIKS HAD FIVE MORE CHILDREN: JOHN (JAN JR.), ANNA, MARIE, MARTIN AND JOSEPH. IN 1886, ANNA ZABCIK AND HER HUSBAND, JAN (JOHN) KADLECEK MOVED TO BELL COUNTY, FOLLOWED BY HER BROTHER, JAN JR., AND THEIR BROTHER-IN-LAW, MARTIN STEPAN. THEY ALL PURCHASED LAND IN BELL COUNTY AS LAND OWNERSHIP WAS A DETERMINING FACTOR IN STATUS IN THE CZECH COMMUNITY. THE AREA WAS ORIGINALLY KNOWN AS KOCENDA, BUT CHANGED TO LUGOVILLE AROUND 1905 WHEN JOHN ALFRED LUGO (1875-1963) OPENED A STORE IN THE COMMUNITY. IN 1907, LUGO SOLD HIS STORE AND HOUSE TO FRANK JOSPEH MAREK SR. (1884-1961) WHO CHANGED THE NAME TO MAREKVILLE. THE NAME CHANGED A FINAL TIME IN 1923 WHEN FRANK ZABCIK PURCHASED THE STORE, SALOON, HOUSE AND LAND AND CHANGED THE NAME TO ZABCIKVILLE. FRANK ZABCIK REPLACED THE OLD STORE BUILDING WITH A NEW STUCCO-FACED STRUCTURE IN 1932 AND THE AREA AND BUSINESSES GREW. OTHER BUSINESSES INCLUDED A COTTON GIN, BLACKSMITH SHOP, AUTOMOBILE REPAIR GARAGE, GRANARY AND CAFÉ. IN ADDITION, MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY WERE INVOLVED IN SOCIAL ACTIVITIES SUCH AS SPORTS, ENTERTAINMENT SHOWS AND RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS, AND JOINED TO FORM CO-OPS. MOST OF THE ORIGINAL LAND PURCHASED BY THE ZABCIK FAMILY REMAINS IN THE HANDS OF DESCENDANTS. CITIZENS OF THE AREA CONTINUE TO FARM THE LAND AND PROVIDE SERVICES TO THE COMMUNITY. (2012)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1856, Jan Zabcik Sr. brought his family from Moravia to Galveston, part of the wave of Czech immigrants who settled first around Cat Springs before moving on to Bell County. There the family bought land—a marker of status in the Czech community—and a small settlement grew, changing names from Kocenda to Lugoville to Marekville as different storekeepers took over. In 1923 Frank Zabcik bought the store and land and renamed it Zabcikville, and much of that original family acreage remains with descendants who still farm it.
Why it matters
Zabcikville is a living record of Czech immigration to central Texas, where land ownership and community continuity turned Old World families into enduring American farming communities.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Zabcikville sits in the rolling farmland of Bell County, in the heart of central Texas — country that in the mid-nineteenth century was drawing a remarkable wave of newcomers from central Europe. Beginning in the 1850s, families from Moravia and Bohemia (in what is now the Czech Republic) crossed the Atlantic and landed at Galveston, then Texas's great port of entry, seeking farmland and a freer future than the Old World offered them.
They arrived in a Texas that had only recently become a state, its interior still very much a frontier of settlement. These Czech immigrants typically clustered first in the older, established colonies closer to the coast — places like Cat Spring in Austin County, one of the earliest Czech footholds in Texas — before pressing inland as land opened up and families grew. Their westward movement into counties like Bell was part of the larger nineteenth-century push into the Texas interior.
For these families, land was everything. In the Czech farming communities of Texas, owning your own acreage wasn't merely an economic asset — it was the very measure of a family's standing and permanence. That single cultural fact explains much of what happened at Zabcikville: it is a story of one family acquiring land, holding it, and building a whole community outward from it across generations.
People & events
The story begins in 1856, when Jan Zabcik Sr. — then in his forties — brought his wife, Anna Hruska, and their daughters Johanna and Katerina from Moravia to the port of Galveston, traveling alongside his brother Martin and his sister Anna. Once in Texas, the family made their way to Cat Spring in Austin County, planting themselves in one of the state's established Czech colonies. Living and working across Austin and Washington counties, Jan and Anna raised five more children — John (Jan Jr.), Anna, Marie, Martin, and Joseph.
The move to Bell County came with the next generation. In 1886, daughter Anna Zabcik and her husband, Jan Kadlecek, relocated to Bell County, soon followed by her brother Jan Jr. and a brother-in-law, Martin Stepan. True to their community's values, they all bought land. A little settlement took shape nearby — first called Kocenda, then renamed Lugoville around 1905 when John Alfred Lugo opened a store there. In 1907 Lugo sold his store and house to Frank Joseph Marek Sr., and the place became Marekville.
The final chapter — and the name that stuck — came in 1923, when Frank Zabcik purchased the store, saloon, house, and land, and renamed the community Zabcikville. He replaced the old store with a new stucco-faced building in 1932, and the settlement grew around it: a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, an automobile repair garage, a granary, and a café. Neighbors built a shared social life around sports, entertainment shows, religious associations, and cooperatives. And most tellingly, much of the original Zabcik land is still held — and still farmed — by descendants.
Its place in the American story
Zabcikville is a small dot on the map that holds one of the larger stories of American immigration. The great nineteenth-century migration from central Europe reshaped huge swaths of the United States, and Texas received one of the most significant Czech settlements in the nation. Communities like this one are the living proof of it — places where Old World families put down roots so deep that their descendants farm the same ground today.
The settlement also captures a distinctly American pattern: the ethnic farming community that formed the backbone of rural life across the Midwest, the Plains, and Texas. A store, a gin, a blacksmith, a café, a hall for socials and cooperatives — these were the institutions through which immigrant families became American communities without surrendering their heritage. The very name changing hands with each new storekeeper, from Kocenda to Lugoville to Marekville to Zabcikville, is a miniature history of how such places grew.
Above all, Zabcikville embodies the immigrant dream of land ownership that drew so many to America in the first place. For a family that valued property as the true measure of standing, keeping the original acreage in the family for well over a century is not just continuity — it is the American promise, kept.
If you visit
Zabcikville is not a tourist attraction so much as a genuine living farming community east of Temple, and that's exactly its charm. Come with the marker's story in mind and read the landscape: the flat, productive central Texas farmland stretching around you is the same ground the Zabciks bought, held, and are still working generations later. That continuity is the real monument here.
Look for the marks of a small rural crossroads community — the kind of place that once supported its own gin, garage, blacksmith, and café. Whatever you find standing today, picture the 1932 stucco-faced store at the center of it all, the heart of a settlement that grew up around one family's land. It's a place that rewards slowing down and imagining the socials, ballgames, and cooperative gatherings that knit these neighbors together.
Zabcikville fits beautifully into a road trip through the Czech heritage country of central Texas, a region dotted with communities founded by Moravian and Bohemian immigrants. Pair it with the farming towns and painted churches of the surrounding counties, and you'll come away with a vivid sense of how far these families traveled — from Galveston's docks to the land they never let go of.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Jan Zabcik Sr.
- · Frank Zabcik
- · John Alfred Lugo
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Homesite of Theodore Rabroker
Westphalia, TX
Theodore Rabroker and his wife Mary Ann emigrated from Westphalia, Germany, in 1866, and after years in Pennsylvania and Iowa, Rabroker saw promise in this fertile Falls County land and imagined a German-Catholic community here. Settling in 1879 and buying acreage he resold to Frelsburg families, he deliberately invited only German-Catholics within a five-mile radius, forging tight community traditions. The first Mass was said in his home in 1882, and he led the building of the parish church that followed.
McLennan's Bluff
Rosebud, TX
Scottish immigrant Neil McLennan built his home on this bluff above Pond Creek in 1835 on land granted through Sterling Robertson's colony, part of the first wave of Anglo settlement in central Texas. Frontier life was perilous: in 1836 his brother Laughlin's family was attacked, and the McLennans sheltered for years in the fortified town of Nashville. Neil later scouted the country that would bear his name, settling in McLennan County until his death in 1867, while Rosebud grew up on his old grant.
St. Michael's Cemetery
Burlington, TX
St. Michael's Cemetery grew from the Irish Catholic families who settled the Milam County community once called Waterford. In 1876 brothers John and Michael Jones bought the land; Michael died two years later and was buried there, and in 1897 his heirs deeded the plot to the Catholic Diocese of Galveston. The headstones—German, Czech, Irish, Hispanic, and more—record the mingling of cultures that built Burlington, including veterans reaching back to the Civil War.
First Baptist Church of Cameron
Cameron, TX
Founded in 1853 by itinerant preachers, First Baptist of Cameron grew alongside its Milam County town through the second half of the 19th century. In 1914 it extended membership to the community's Mexican-Americans and later helped establish the Mexican Baptist Church of Cameron in 1925. Its history reflects both frontier faith and the shifting social fabric of Central Texas.